No Regrets
by SocialMoth
Summary: AU; Four years after Kouichi's death, Kouji has a lot he wished never happened, and as much that he's tried to forget. Too bad life goes on... Kouji did not just bury memories; he buried landmines. -Trigger warning for self-harm-
1. Prologue

**Hey, I revised this first chapter, so if you've read it before, read it again. Or not. You don't need to read it to understand what happens next.**

**I really just made it shorter. Like, a heck of a lot shorter. There was a lot of information that wasn't very necessary, so I nixed it.  
**

**This is a rewrite of a story that I wrote when I was eleven or twelve years old. Why rewrite it so many years later? Because I can.  
**

**Disclaimer time!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Digimon. 'Nuff said.**

**

* * *

**

It was raining hard, the kind of warm summer downpour that soaks you to the skin within minutes no matter what you're wearing, that clings to and drips from your eyelashes, that makes you feel so _alive_ because the intoxicatingly fresh smell of it clouds your mind.

I hadn't felt alive in years. All I could smell was the sodden earth, and the faded flowers, and the cold tang of the stone that had been driven into the ground.

_Kimura, Kouichi_

Every time I resolved to live again I would remember the words on that headstone and drop my head and wonder _why_ I couldn't just end it right there. Why I had to live only to have my throat constrict painfully every time I saw the light leaving his eyes.

I shouldn't regret going to the Digital World. After a lifetime of staying under Dad's wing and never having a real say in what happened in my life, the opportunity to truly see what I could do was bracing. No rules, no restrictions, no worried voices telling me something was too dangerous to try. I was in my element. Everything I'd learned in my kendo classes merely chipped the iceberg of what I accomplished in battle after battle.

I shouldn't regret meeting Takuya, and Izumi, and the others, and becoming so close to them like I had. Moving around every year or so made it difficult to hold on to friends, and by then I had stopped trying. In the Digital World, I couldn't help myself; we saved each others' lives so many times and... they were there for me. Even when I tried to desert them, no matter how many times I ran away, they always came after me, because I was their _friend_. It hurt to drift apart.

I shouldn't regret meeting Kouichi. I don't want to regret meeting my brother, but I tell myself that if I only hadn't, I wouldn't be hurting so badly right now. It's selfish, but it's how I feel. I don't want the memories to unearth themselves over and over again and tear me apart.

I shouldn't regret any of it, but I do. And what I regret most, is how it all ended.

~/~

Before we knew it, we had spilled back into the Real World. Just minutes had gone by; we might have simply gone to the wrong train. Takuya led us to the stairway he'd watched Kouichi going down and... nothing. He wasn't there. One of the staff recognized me because he had seen my brother's face, and he said that he had fallen down a flight of stairs chasing someone. _Me_, I thought with a painful jolt._ He's in the hospital now because he was trying to get to __**me**_.

We rushed to the hospital, found the room where doctors scrambled desperately to revive a thin body sprawled on a cold platform. I hesitated. A masked doctor yelled "Clear!" over the rabble and Kouichi's limp body jumped off the table from the jolt of electricity before landing with a heavy _thump_. My eyes went to the screen displaying the status of his vital signs. A white line checked breathing; flat line. Green was heart rate; nonexistent. Numb, I approached the table. The small frame jerked again from one last try. No response. A nurse tried to keep me away, but I barely heard her.

"Please," my voice cracked, and I could feel the tears gathering, "Please, I'm his brother. Please…" They believed me. Dimly I heard the anxious shuffling of my friends' feet behind me. But they did not exist. All my focus was on the blank blue eyes staring at nothing. All I heard was the single flat tone, like an alarm clock invading a dream, and I wanted desperately to wake up from the nightmare. My breath caught. There was still a tiny glimmer of light, moving ever so slightly as it locked with my gaze. Crazily I thought I heard him try to say something. His eyes glazed over even as I grasped his shoulder to rouse him.

"Call it," someone said somewhere behind me, and I choked in shock. A heavy hand settled on my shoulder. I began shaking. I didn't care who saw me cry. As the tears began to fall I crumpled to my knees next to the table, staring up at Kouichi's still form. Skin unnaturally pale, shaggy hair looking glassy in the sterile hospital light. I buried my face in my hands and screamed. _Wake up, wake up, please wake up, Kouichi!_ My body felt like it was floating; my friends' panicked voices echoed faintly and I fell into darkness.

I woke up in Dad's car, on the way home. In just seconds I remembered everything, but I didn't make a sound. Dad's reflection in the rear-view mirror looked strained. Whether from work or me, I wasn't sure. I didn't want to ask. So I closed my eyes and stayed quiet. When we got home, I stayed limp as Dad carried me into the house and tucked me into bed, so I wouldn't have to talk to him about what had happened.

I lay awake for hours, silent, dry-eyed. I didn't think I could cry again.

I later learned that the hospital had called Dad to come take me home. Nothing life-threatening had made me pass out. Though Dad never mentioned Kouichi to me, something in his eyes told me that he knew. We never talked about it. He didn't know how to bring it up to me, and I didn't want to.

When I went to school the next day I tried to make like nothing had changed, but it was impossible. Nothing could ever be the same again after everything that had happened. I tried to keep in touch with the gang. Then they tried to keep in touch with me, and then I cut them off altogether. I didn't want to, but my depression told me that I had to. It told me that I didn't deserve to eat. It told me that I only deserved the pain of a razor slicing through my skin over and over, blood dripping from my arms and legs until I couldn't feel anything else but sweet pain.

I wound up hospitalized a couple times, and every time they would pump me full of nutrients and psychobabble.

The last time I went there, I nearly died; I hadn't eaten for a week and I'd made myself bleed until I was too dizzy to steer the blade. Nothing mattered to me anymore, I'd told them at one point. Just let me go. I don't want to make it. They were afraid that I wouldn't.

I remember lying in a plane between sleep and wakefulness, staring out the window but seeing nothing. Then, crazy as it sounds, I heard a voice in my head. _This can't be the way you want to go. You can't let it end like this. Don't stop fighting yet._

I still don't eat much, but I've recovered most of the weight that I lost. All the scars I have are old.

Everyone called my recovery a miracle.

~/~

The rain came down even harder; I watched someone go by with an umbrella overhead. I took a last look at the headstone. _Kimura, Kouichi_. I never wanted to read that he was only eleven years old when he died. Hands in my pockets, I turned from the grave and walked out of the cemetery. Time to go home.

* * *

**Hope you liked. I think it gets a bit odd and melodramatic by the end, but... well, anyway. Review and whatnot.**


	2. Only the Beginning

**Holy--! Did I really just return to this story? Sorry for the inhumanely long wait, guys. I really wanted to get another story finished and behind me before I moved on to finishing this one. It just took a lot longer than I hoped it would.  
**

**If anyone cares to notice, I revised the first chapter. Nothing huge has really changed as far as the plot; I just made it a heck of a lot shorter. I doubt Kouji would ramble as much as I would if I were telling a story. I typically avoid writing first-person stories for that reason; I, myself, tend to take over the character's thoughts. But I'm working on it. I got my paws on the fourth season, so I have a fresh perspective on the characters, and hopefully I can keep Kouji better in-character now... any aberrations can be blamed on him being four years older. Huzzah! :D**

**Anyway, this chapter's been written and waiting for posting for months, but something in me has me really reluctant about posting stuff (it has to be 'perfect,' y'know. I think it's a result of my AP English class, but I could be wrong). I hope everyone's in character, and I hope you like it. :)

* * *

**I was just minutes from my front door. Rain came down in torrents, obscuring my vision as great heavy drops splashed every inch of me. I was literally fighting the downpour up the last incline before the smooth two-block walk to my house.

If I could have heard car motors above the roar of the rain, then maybe I wouldn't be telling you about this. As it was, I could barely hear myself thinking. The car came up behind me at a speed too high for a residential area; it had taken the corner much too fast. The high squeal of wet tires on drenched cement hit my ears and I wheeled around. Panic flooded me for the single second before blazing lights crashed into me, and then everything went black.

~/~

"Oh, my God, are you okay? … Kid, come on, wake up! … You're going to be okay, all right? Don't worry. … Yeah, I need an ambulance. … No! I took a corner too fast and it started hydroplaning… Uh, hold on…"

Two cold fingers pressed into the side of my neck for a few seconds.

"There's a pulse, it's weak. He's breathing, barely… Yeah, I'll stay here…"

His voice faded away in a faint metallic echo. I could smell and taste the coppery tang of blood, could feel it hot, stinging, washing with the rain down my face. It was difficult to breathe, like there was a vise on my lungs. My right leg didn't seem to exist. I didn't open my eyes; I couldn't. It was too much work. Suddenly I took a jerking breath in. I coughed at the pain, and felt something warm and wet burst out of my throat; the copper taste intensified. Heavy slapping footsteps resounded through the asphalt. With a sharp pang in my chest I realized I recognized the pattern of those steps even above the roar of the rain.

"Kouji!"

"What?" The first voice answered.

"What do you mean, 'what'? That's my son!" My eyelids forced themselves halfway up. Dad's silhouette was edged with a blue-white glow from the car's headlights. I could barely read his expression. What little I did see of his face was tight with fear and anguish as he knelt down beside me and carefully touched my head.

"Dad…" My voice was barely there, and it scared me. I coughed again. The light around Dad was fading into darkness and my eyes closed again. Sound dimmed; it was too much effort to breathe; I heard someone screaming my name; I felt myself slipping away.

...

~/~

...

_Kouji…_

Warm. It was warm. Warm and soft. I felt like I could fall asleep any minute, though I wasn't at all tired; that's how comfortable it was.

_Kouji…_

I rolled over. There was no pain in doing so, but just seconds ago I could hardly breathe out of agony. It puzzled me.

Grass. That's what the ground felt like. Smelled like grass, too. Automatically I took a couple blades between thumb and forefinger, rubbing them between. A huge breath of clean, warm, grassy air, followed by a huge sigh of contentment. Everything was perfect.

"Kouji…"

"Oh, what?" I grumbled, rolling the rest of the way onto my stomach. I opened my eyes to see bright green grass dotted here and there with pink flowers. That wasn't all. There were also green and yellow sneakers at the ends of long white pants. "You're kidding," I whispered, not sure whether I really wanted to look farther up to make sure. Curiosity got the better of me and I turned my eyes upward.

_He looks exactly the same!_

"Kouichi?" My voice was high with surprise, but there was no trying to cover it. I tried to stand up, but I had to stop at my knees. "Kouichi." I couldn't say any more. He looked every bit as wonderful as the day I realized he was my brother. Dark hair shined in the sun, and deep blue eyes were filled with that peculiar light that everyone claims to have and that no one else can understand.

Kouichi grinned, firmly grasping my hovering hand and pulling me to my feet. I realized he had actually aged since… He was taller, and his facial features were more defined. Exactly like me.

"You've cut your hair," he said, fingering the ends of it by my ear. I almost didn't catch it; I was too caught up in the fact that my brother who had been dead for four years was standing right in front of me, speaking to me. "I suppose you had to, for middle school." I nodded, still numb, until I finally got my wits back and looked around properly. More of the same; a huge grassy field, speckled with pink blossoms, under a pure white sky. Just me and Kouichi.

"Are we alone?" I asked. No one else was visible for as far as I could see.

"Oh no," Kouichi grinned. He looked off into the distance. "You don't know how crowded this place is. You see only me because I'm the only one you wanted to see. But I can see everybody." A serene smile stretched his lips; he said it all so calmly, but the thought that a full field of people was entirely invisible to me made me feel paranoid.

"Can they hear us?"

"What interest would they have in what we say?" He looked back at me, the light in his eyes dancing. "Other conversations?" He shook his head. "Background noise. All that's important to me right now is you. Are you okay? I saw it from up here, but… it happened so fast."

The tone in conversation had changed so quickly I wasn't sure what to say at first. Kouichi's eyes filled with sadness and concern, like they always had in the Digital World whenever I 'd been having a tough time. Events were jumbled together in my memory, and I was scared to make sense of them. But for Kouichi's sake I had to at least try. Saying nothing would only make him more concerned.

"I don't know. One minute I'm walking home, and the next..." I knew my eyes were wide, from disbelief that I made no effort to suppress. That car had come so fast, I'd almost literally had no idea what had hit me. Shock hit me like a physical blow; I was...! Wildly, I looked around again, my heart-- not pounding in my chest! "Kouichi," I whispered, like speaking it louder was a bad idea, "I'm dead, aren't I?" As an answer he just tilted his head sadly, his eyes soft. The panic left and I turned away from him. "If I am, then... what is this place? What's happening?" A slender hand grasped my shoulder and turned me around to face him. It wasn't until he did that I realized I was shaking.

"Kouji," he started, holding my gaze, unblinking. Little by little I felt my hands settle, my legs stop trembling. My breath came easy and slow. He continued. "This place… I won't call it anything, because I don't know what Dad raised you to believe, _but_…" He broke the eye contact to scan all corners of the landscape. There was a beautiful blue mountain range far in the distance behind him, peaks laced with snow. "When we die, this is where we go. Isn't it wonderful?" It had never occurred to me before that my brother looked his best when he was excited about something. He released me and spun in a full circle, laughing, with his arms floating in the air with his momentum like pinwheel fins, grinning at the flawless white sky. "At the hospital, when I was dying… I was so scared that it was the end. I thought, 'Is this it? I meet my brother and then I never see him again?' But no! I wound up here, and I can see _everything_, and…" Our eyes locked, the grin still plastered on his face, positively glowing. Kouichi came to me again, took my hands and looked at me in earnest. "It's _beautiful_." I blinked, and felt myself starting to blush at his spontaneous enthusiasm. He was like a little kid playing in the snow, a side of him I had never seen. His eyes were dazzling; he looked on the verge of tears of joy.

"Kouichi, if I didn't know better, I would say you were in love." He laughed again, but he did not deny it. One hand was allowed to drop back at my side, but he still held onto my right.

"Come on!" He ran, dragging me up a green hill, toward the mountains. There were no trees anywhere that I could see. Everything was open and airy, not like the cities that I was used to, where everything was tightly packed together and you were better off looking for fresh air inside. Close to the top, he slowed down, stopping right where the curve began to level off. As I reached his side I saw a clear blue pond sparkling in the sunlight. "I sleep by that pond," Kouichi turned me around so I could look back down the hill at everything, "and every morning I wake up to this view." A breeze kicked up from the rolling landscape below, ruffling our clothing and hair. The grass sounded like a field of tiny maracas.

"Is this all there is?" There couldn't possibly be, with all the people who die every day…

"There's more. I've just stayed here." He was still holding onto my hand, and he gave it a squeeze. "It's closer to you and Mom."

"She misses you."

Kouichi closed his eyes and let out a sigh, looking mournful for the first time since I had arrived. "I know." Finally he let go of my hand and sat down, letting his legs fall down the hill. I sat too, drawing my knees up and wrapping my arms around them. The breeze started to blow stronger, but it was warm and comfortable. For a long time, I couldn't say anything; I just sat and openly stared at him, absorbing every detail. He took it in stride. Occasionally he looked out to the distance or at the space just to the side of me and smiled happily at something I could not see.

"Even in the Digital World," I said just loud enough to catch his attention, "I didn't think I could ever see you like this," I told him. He tilted his head at me, amused. "I mean it." I rested my head on my arms and gazed fondly into his eyes. "Sometimes it was all anyone could do to get you to smile, and even then you never smiled like you really meant it."

"Neither did you," Kouichi countered. Touché. "You still don't, Otouto-kun." Feeling slightly humbled, I plucked some grass blades from the earth to stall for time. If he had been able to see everything, then was there any use in making excuses? "You need to go back."

"What?" I said, disbelieving. But when I met his eyes he was completely serious, even through the sad smile he offered me to soften the blow. "Kouichi! I--!"

"It's not your time yet," he said firmly. I just stared blankly at him, dumbfounded. I didn't want to get upset with him, but how could he possibly understand what he was asking me to do when he was so high on heaven? "It just isn't. Don't ask me how I know."

"I don't want to face the rest of my life without you," I said pleadingly, "Not after what having you did for me."

"Kouji," he sighed in a rush of air, "You always were the stubborn one, weren't you?" He shifted closer to me, and I leaned hard against his shoulder, shivering slightly. My brother might have been dead, but his body felt so solid and warm and _real_. There was no way I could ever want to leave him.

"It'd hurt," I argued lamely, and I felt his shoulder shake as he suppressed a tired laugh, "It'd hurt a lot. I got hit by a car, you know."

"You'll make it," Kouichi assured me as he playfully flicked a strand of hair into my face. I immediately removed it. "You're the tough one."

"Stop talking like I'm actually going. I'm not leaving you." He just shook his head at me, then looked out over the fields again. This place -- whatever it was -- was gorgeous, and with us there, together again at last… well, how can I say it any other way? It was a beautiful dream. It was warm and beautiful and absolutely perfect and I never wanted to wake up again if it meant I could stay here forever.

I coughed, and Kouichi looked over at me in concern. "Kouji?" he asked when I coughed again, and couldn't stop. My throat felt clogged by something and I couldn't answer him. I rolled onto all fours and shakily pushed to my feet. If I could get a drink of water from that pond-- I pointed to it and Kouichi helped me up. "Kouji, you're soaked!" Wide-eyed he gathered the ends of his sleeves and pressed them to my hair; I felt cold droplets drizzle down my neck.

"Huh?" It was difficult to breathe.

Before either of us could say anything else I felt my heart - my whole _body_ - _jump_. I stumbled out of Kouichi's grasp, clutching my chest. He looked past me at the same moment, his worried expression rapidly shifting to hopeful. My body jolted again and it felt like something was pulling me in every direction at once. Before I knew it I was on all fours, gasping for air.

"Kouichi, what's happening!" I choked out as another contraction rattled through me. The sky above me darkened with the threat of rain. My brother caught my eye again, his face beaming.

"They're bringing you back, Kouji," he laughed, "Somebody down there loves you!" He fell to his knees beside me; he clasped my outstretched hand between his, a new urgency in his voice. "You're not quite dead yet, Kouji; this area, where you woke up, is actually kind of an in-between place, between the physical and spiritual worlds. Don't look at me like that, it's true." Another sharp shock felled me to the ground and he leaned forward. "Listen to me; I do not regret what I did in the fight against Lucemon. I _never_ did! Besides," his tone softened, "how else could I make sure you wouldn't die from doing something stupid?" A pale finger traced a paler scar on my wrist for only a split second. I could only look down from his eyes for shame.

"That was you, wasn't it?" I said. He squeezed my hand. A cough ripped from my throat as my body jolted again. I felt very weak and my entire body ached. Kouichi held onto my hand through the rest of it. "Kouichi." My eyes pricked with tears. My chest had tightened around my lungs and it _hurt_. "Did this happen to you, when…" Kouichi still smiled, but the light in his eyes was softer, even sadder.

"Yes."

"You could have come back, though!" I said, my voice reduced to a whine, "I was there, they were trying to revive you, but you --"

"Kouji, I couldn't have come back. I just couldn't. I don't regret staying; it's so peaceful here." He looked so genuinely happy in that moment that I had no heart to argue further. Tears fell down my cheeks, but I didn't care. "Just remember, Otouto-kun," I heard him say as my vision started to dim, "that I love you."

His hand left. I reached out to him again, but already his outline had faded.

"Kouichi!" My voice echoed in my ears. My eyelids fell. My mind blanked.

_I love you, too.

* * *

_

**[Otouto-kun - little brother (affectionate)]**

**Happy!Kouichi is cute, isn't he? I hope he's still reasonably in character. He doesn't get much joy in the context of the show, so I thought I'd give him a break. Not to mention I still smile every time I read that part, so no way I'm changing it!**

**I think it gets a bit sappy toward the end, though... Oh well!  
**

**I went out on some limbs with this chapter. I know the concept of an afterlife is touchy with some people; I didn't intend to step on any toes, but if I did, I apologize.I don't have a frame of reference for healthy, close sibling relationships, particularly among males, so if anything in here suggested incest, it's not. This is NOT incest. Brothers gotta hug, too. (Or in this case hold hands; I'm sure young brothers do that.) Anyway.  
And, how many people can say they watched "Ghost Whisperer" to figure out how to describe someone being brought back from the dead?  
**

**Third chapter shouldn't take so long. Don't know when it will be up, but I doubt you'll have to wait a year for it!  
**


	3. Digging Up Buried Doors

**Huzzah and a day! After a several-months hiatus, I am returned!  
**

**And I have excuses! :D For those who are interested... I blame the madness of senior year, and NaNoWriMo '09. (I won, and finished my novel, with 68,128 words!)**

**This chapter, as it always seems to go with me, has been written for a long time. As always, I was uncertain whether it was ready for posting. It really could have been posted in October or September, but obviously it wasn't.**

**I feel I should mention, that part of the inspiration for Kousei's character comes from FFN writer Akino Ame's story "All the Fears You Hold So Dear," a story that I _still_ love reading so many years later, and from her mini-rant at the end of the story, which I also enjoy reading. I wanted to make him seem more like a father, and I wanted to make him a likable person. Same goes for Junpei (for being likable, I mean; no kids for him yet), even though he isn't here much... Just read the story and author note that I mentioned, then I won't have to explain myself much more. I don't have permission to borrow from any of Akino's ideas, but I hope she, and you, can forgive me for doing so; it just shows how much I loved her ideas. :)**

**Many thanks to my readers and reviewers!**

**Without further ado, here's the third chapter!

* * *

**

Rain hammered somewhere above me, but it sounded somehow detached. There was a strange resonance, like there was something halting it. Air was forced into my lungs and sucked out again. I choked; something long and thin had been pushed through my mouth and down my throat. Slowly I became aware of the long, low wail of sirens. I was too tired to open my eyes. But I couldn't help coughing and gasping against the tube. Someone started above me and it was drawn out. I could breathe on my own. It hurt like hell, but I could do it. There was noise of someone moving around.

"Kouji." A large hand grasped my own. There was a sensation of being rocked from side to side, and a long electronic wail. We were in an ambulance. With a soft groan I turned my head towards Dad's voice. "Try not to move too much. They're taking you to the hospital." My eyes cracked open. He looked drenched; it had been raining very hard.

"Dad, I --"

"It'll be okay, son."

I let myself go limp.

The next time I woke up, it was to a dark room, the buzz of florescent lights in a hallway and low voices. There was a regular beeping of a vitals monitor somewhere to my left. I caught fragments of conversation, the timbre of Dad's voice one of the participants. A nurse's silhouette adjusted the IV drip. Senses faded, and I fell asleep again.

The sun was shining through the window when I woke up again. This time I stayed awake. It was still painful to breathe. A thin tube wrapped around my head at nose level delivered extra oxygen to my lungs. There was a cast on my right leg. White gauze wrapped around various places on my body, and I could feel a thick pad on the right side of my head. Dad was asleep in a chair to my right, with dark circles rimming his eyes. My hand felt heavy, but I reached it toward him anyway.

"Dad." It was so quiet I was afraid I had no voice. I tried again. This time he stirred. I kept calling for him; it was the only thing I could think to say. His eyes opened, settled on me. The corners of his eyes crinkled slightly as he smiled solemnly.

"Hey, sunshine," he croaked. He ran a hand through his hair, messy from a night of worrying. His movements were very stiff; he had been sitting there the whole night. "How are you feeling?"

I let my head fall towards him. In truth, I had no idea. Painful. That was the word that came to me. I was sore all over, stabbing. And how do you tell your father you saw someone who died four years ago?

You don't.

"Hungry," I said instead. And I meant it. Yet it, briefly, brought a true smile to his face, something I felt I hadn't seen from him in a long time.

"The nurse should come in soon; we can ask her to bring you something."

"All right."

Silence. It took some effort to turn my head to the other side; there was a TV in the room.

"Where's the remote?" I wondered aloud. As if by magic the television clicked on and the remote was placed in my hand. I flicked through the channels, settled on something after a few minutes, and just let my mind wander. I have no idea what I was watching anymore; I guess it was just background noise in the end. After just a few minutes of this, I was surprised to see Izumi walk through the doorway with Takuya trailing after her.

"Hey, Kouji," Izumi beamed. I hadn't seen her much in the past few years; she had spent that time becoming very beautiful. Her smile still made me blush, and I frantically tried to hide it by scratching at the oxygen tube as Takuya waved feebly, looking uncomfortable. We hadn't parted on the best of terms, I remembered. He'd been giving me grief about shutting myself away from the world after all we had been through together, and then I had a few words to say to him for that. We'd never spoken to each other again.

"You were in the paper," Takuya broke the ice awkwardly. I blinked. He conveniently had the article with him, and he tossed it into my lap. It was just a short blurb, but the details were there.

"'Critical condition?'" I said, looking up at them.

"Your heart stopped beating, and you lost a lot of blood," Dad answered quietly. I had forgotten he was there. Izumi gasped and Takuya comfortingly grasped her hand. "I thought I'd lost you." I dropped my eyes from their faces. While Dad had been grieving, I had been la-dee-da happy in… wherever the heck I had been. I checked the newspaper date and compared it to the date on Dad's watch. Turned out I had been comatose for at least two days.

"Well… I'm okay now," I offered quietly. Dad gently ruffled my hair, but didn't say anything more. Izumi had pulled a chair up to the bedside, but Takuya still hung at the door, watching what was on the television screen. He still wore those ridiculously large goggles, but they didn't look quite so big now that he had grown about a foot. "You can come in, Takuya." The corners of his mouth turned up slightly as he approached and sat at the foot of the bed.

"I'll see if I can find someone to bring you something to eat," Dad said, and he politely excused himself from the room. I switched the TV off and held the remote in my lap on top of the newspaper. The room went very quiet for a while. After she got tired of looking between me and Takuya, Izumi broke the silence.

"Tomoki wanted to come with us to see you, but he's got a bad cold. And Junpei couldn't get any time off work, but he said he'd try to come tomorrow. He's just started working at this deli, and they're a bit short-handed."

"Oh yeah? How's that going for him?"

"The kids love his magic tricks. The other day, he told me, he took a slice of chicken out of a little girl's ear and she cried!"

Takuya chuckled as he shook his head. "Poor kid," he said.

"Yeah. But she laughed in the end, and even asked him to do it again." I tried to picture Junpei working at the deli, all of the children in awe of his mystical powers. Howie Doodatt. The memory made me smile a little, even if I had rolled my eyes at the time. "So, how have things been with you?" she asked, startling me back to reality.

Things haven't been good. I made some stupid mistakes, and I nearly died a couple times, not counting this time.

That is what I thought about saying.

What I said was, "They've been okay." I fiddled with the wrapping around my wrist. "What about you?" Izumi looked to Takuya for inspiration, but goggle-boy didn't come up with anything right away. She turned back to me and shrugged self-consciously.

"School and sports, really. I keep myself busy, but I haven't done anything special."

"Miss Student Council President is so modest," Takuya teased, and Izumi blushed as I sat straighter in surprise and – yes – admiration.

"Student Council, really?" I asked, trying to attach the title to the head-to-toe lavender-clad girl I remembered from the Digital World. At the beginning, with her being so insecure she was always trying to one-up everyone else and (ineffectively) boss them around... definitely not; but by the end of the journey she had shown some real leadership skills. It made perfect sense.

"_Vice_-president, actually," Izumi corrected, her face a brighter red. She pantomimed slapping Takuya upside the head and he pretended to dodge it a second away from perfection. "Takuya still likes to blow things out of proportion."

"I've gotten better, haven't I?" Takuya pouted with puppy-dog eyes, hands limp in his lap. She tilted her head haughtily at him, smirking. It seemed so out of her current character that I was a bit confused, but just as quickly she broke the leer and shoved his shoulder playfully.

_Ah..._

"So what about you, Takuya?" I interrupted before it could go on. He stopped and thought for a bit, one finger tapping his chin. After a moment he grinned cockily and I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Well, _nothing special_," -- he directed this right at Izumi -- "but my soccer team did win the prefecture tournament last weekend." With an excited gasp Izumi clapped her hands and leaned forward in her seat.

"Did you really? You never told me about that!"

"Surprise!" Takuya declared, throwing his hands up in the victory pose, before Izumi tackled him with a hug. I rolled my eyes, but I smiled appreciatively. Something in the back of my mind was demanding to know why I had ever allowed myself to fall out of my friends' lives. With another grin Takuya looked back at me, the wall effectively torn down. "Kouji, I don't believe that you haven't been up to anything worth telling us about. Spill," he said, even leaning forward in anticipation. I blinked and tried to think. I'd been up to... not much, really. And most of what I had been up to wasn't anything I felt like telling them about.

"I don't know what to tell you," I said, shrugging. Takuya looked like he was about to tell me off for being stoic again. "I really haven't been doing much. After..." Izumi's forehead creased in sympathy when my voice trailed off. I cleared my throat and continued. "I guess I just wasn't able to move on like you guys were." She tentatively grasped my hand.

"It was hard for all of us, Kouji. You know that," she murmured. Takuya nodded glumly, looking for once like he wasn't sure what to say.

"I know," I said, my voice very quiet. I wanted to say more, but Dad walked in.

"It shouldn't be too much longer before you can eat, Kouji," he assured me as he took his seat back. He frowned a bit at the solemn looks on our faces. "Do you mind me asking what's wrong?"

"Everything's fine," Takuya said, mustering some cheer into his voice, well enough that Izumi and I could follow suit.

"We were just lost in thought, Dad," I explained, hoping he would take it at that. For the second he scrutinized me I thought he wouldn't (parents always seem to see through lies), but he didn't inquire any further. A new conversation diverted our attentions away from the whole subject, long enough for a nurse to arrive with a tray of food. "Help yourselves," I told them; no way I could have eaten all of that. The nurse came in later to take the mostly-empty tray away, and to inform us that visiting hours would be ending soon.

"I'll try to come again tomorrow, if I don't have a student council meeting," Izumi said as she stood to leave.

"I have a soccer match tomorrow," Takuya murmured regretfully. "If it runs late, I don't know if I'll be able to come."

I waved them off. "It's fine if you can't. Don't worry about it. Besides, you said Junpei would try to come tomorrow, right?" They nodded and joined at the door.

"See ya, buddy!" Takuya chirped, and, Izumi right at his side, they left. Dad gazed at the empty door well for a bit, getting up when he spotted a doctor. They talked for a few minutes in hushed voices before he came back in, looking visibly relieved.

"Your doctor told me that, now that you're awake, it'll be okay for me to go for a bit," he explained as he shook out his coat, which he had at some point folded over the foot of the bed. "I have some work I really need to get done." With one arm through a sleeve he paused, regarding me carefully. "I don't like having to leave you here, though."

"I'll be fine, Dad," I said, stoic as ever. "I'm old enough to be alone for a few days." Truthfully, I wasn't entirely willing to be stuck in a hospital all by myself, but Dad didn't need to know that. He finished putting on his jacket.

"Well, in any case, Satomi will definitely come in sometime tomorrow if I can't make it," he assured as he leaned over and ruffled my hair again. "Just get some rest for now."

"Bye, Dad," I said, voice trailing away, as I thought about saying something else. He looked back at me, expectantly. Our eyes connected and I hoped he could read them, this one time that I wanted anyone to. I wanted to say it; I really did. But I was so used to only showing it. When a gentle smile creased his mouth I knew he understood and I relaxed against the pillow again. I kept the TV on for company, but after I had been left alone in the room I shrank back into my own thoughts. When I realized the sky was black I turned it off and went to sleep.

As Dad promised, my stepmother came in the next afternoon; she said Dad had been saddled with a tough case and it was going to be hard for him to take any more time off this week. I understood; I was used to it. Junpei came by as well, soon after Satomi left, and gave me a rambling monologue about this amazing girl he worked with at the deli; he could have sworn she was sneaking glances at him and his muscular physique – yes, he'd been working out. It worked well for him, though he admitted he still kept a stash of chocolate bars with him at all times – to share with friends. So of course he offered me one that I gladly accepted. Then he proposed that once I was out of the cast everyone should schedule a day to get together and catch up.

"Sounds fun," I said wistfully, but I was apprehensive. It had been years since we had all gotten together. I wondered, how awkward would it be to jump back in? Or would it be like no time had passed at all? Junpei lightly punched my shoulder and I sneered disapprovingly at him, but he grinned.

"It _is_ fun. I'll see you later, okay? My shift starts in an hour and the deli's on the other side of town," he explained. I bid him good-bye and he waved brightly before he disappeared out the door.

I was in the hospital for a few weeks before I was discharged for home recovery. Dad helped me into the back seat of the car and slid the crutches onto the floor as hospital staff wheeled the chair back in and gave final instructions. I sat up straighter as the imposing white building rolled away and awkwardly did up the seatbelt. With a disapproving snarl I ran a hand through my hair. I _never_ wanted it that greasy again.

"Excited to go home?" Dad asked, and I could tell by his voice he would have been glad to have me home no matter how I felt about it.

"Excited to shower," I returned, running a hand through my hair again.

"Just be careful not to get your cast wet," he reminded, and I nodded agitatedly. At that point I would have done backflips – cast and all – if it meant I could finally get properly clean.

Satomi didn't seem to mind; she welcomed me right inside the door and told me she would make whatever I wanted for dinner that night. It had been a long time since I'd had a real appetite; I told her to surprise me. After my shower (one word: awkward) I lounged around downstairs until dinner was ready. Satomi offered to set up a bed on the couch; I insisted on sleeping in my room upstairs.

For the most part, life returned to a semblance of normal after that. I had a lot of school work to catch up on, so for a long while my evenings were filled with after-school study hall and last month's homework. My teachers were nice about it, though. They knew I was a good student, so I wasn't under a ton of pressure to get everything done within a week. I did my best to get it all out of the way as soon as possible anyway. After a couple more weeks, Takuya sent me an email telling me to let him know the instant my cast was off. I did, and he emailed me back two days later with a proposed date for everyone to get together and have some fun. The anxiety returned; true, I had already seen most of the gang since being in the hospital, but I dreaded what would happen if they prised too closely into the past four years of my life. I'd done too many things that I wasn't proud of, and I carried too many scars. I didn't want them to reject me.

The pragmatic part of me insisted that they were my _friends_, and even if they did find out, they wouldn't cast me aside just like that. We'd been through too much together. Besides, it wasn't like I did that stuff anymore. This was just me being paranoid.

I typed "OK" and clicked "Send."

* * *

**:D**

**This chapter used to be longer, but then I cliff-hanged it and made whatever came after this the beginning of Chapter Four, which I believe is also written... so it should be up by March, right? XD**

**This chapter is where I start to majorly branch off from the original story concept from waaaaaay back when the earth was flat. Without any say on my part, the characters decided that a lot more needed to happen before Kouji could really find peace with himself. I'm not sure how Kouji himself feels about this, but the majority vote is against him, so I don't think he has any choice!**

**Bear with me as I continue forward, because I get the feeling that a lot of what happens next is going to be a stretch...**

**In the meantime, this story is dying for reviews!  
**


	4. The Meaning of Trust

**[laughs] Seems past exploits have spoiled me for reviews. I didn't get a single one for the last update. Which is fine. There is an insane amount of Digimon fanfiction, and it's not like mine appeals to the masses anyway (no Kouji-romance, incest, or yaoi to speak of, after all). But there's angst! And boy do we have drama! XD Or something. You can decide how intense it is for yourselves. ;)**

**And because I know someone who reads might wonder about the hints (and less-hints) of Takumi in this and the previous chapter; it just sort of happened. Even if those were only ten/eleven year old kids, I can't deny that there was definitely interest from both parties. As for Kouizumi? Kouji was just being a gentleman, wasn't he? [Kouji fumes to the right of author] Don't deny it. Plus, he's hot. You can't blame her. XD**

**What the crap am I on today??  
**

**ANYway. Here's the next chapter for you, ahead of schedule. :)

* * *

**

"Kouji!!" Tomoki screamed when he saw me, immediately dashing toward me and throwing his arms around me. I nearly fell backward, but Takuya steadied me.

"Hey, kid," I said, giving him a well-deserved noogie as Izumi laughed. "You grew _how_ many feet in the past four years?" Four years? God... The runt nearly reached my shoulder now. Okay, he reached my chin. Well, maybe my eyes. Thirteen years old, Tomoki. His voice hadn't changed yet, which I think made the transition easier. If it had been a deep, booming voice that hugged me I think I might have died of shock.

Not to mention Kouichi would never have let me live it down if I had. Die it down. Whatever. "I really wanted to visit you earlier," he was saying, "but I had a cold when you were in the hospital, and after I got better I had to study for midterms at school. Middle school midterms are _hard_," he said it with such earnestness I nearly laughed.

"Just wait until you're in high school," Junpei warned, and Tomoki looked sheepishly at his feet. Izumi produced a picnic basket at that moment, and Junpei hastened to help. This time, I noticed, his volunteering wasn't the puppy-like, eager-to-please assistance I'd seen from him in the Digital World, nor was it met with a knowing smirk. I shook my head, wondering why I was so surprised. Four years had passed since my last real contact with any of them; why did I expect them to be exactly the same? Junpei disappeared from the site for a moment and came back with a small cooler.

"I get an employee's discount at the deli," he explained, "So I brought some cold cuts and things for sandwiches!" Everyone was beginning to gather around the picnic blanket; I sat on the edge and tentatively watched them lay things out. An assortment of fresh fruits and vegetables, sushi, onigiri, and for something sweeter, daifuku and pocky, among other things. Takuya set his soccer ball down and sat cross-legged between Tomoki and Izumi.

"Dig in!" Izumi declared as she passed around paper plates. There was a decent spread, leaving a small amount of leftovers before Takuya got antsy and stood with his soccer ball under one arm.

"Who's up to play?" he asked, grinning. I glanced at the rest of the company, watching them get up one by one and debating who would be on whose team.

"What about Kouji?" Tomoki asked. There was an awkward silence during which I considered saying that I would be fine watching, but Izumi wiped the words from my mouth.

"I'll pack up the picnic, Kouji; you should go play," she said brightly, patting my shoulder as she walked past me.

"All right," I said after her, giving in for the sake of simplicity.

Junpei clapped his hands together. "That settles that! Now for teams..."

"I want to play with Takuya!" Tomoki cried, raising his hands and bouncing closer to him. I shrugged my jacket off and tossed it behind me, then stood next to Junpei.

"Okay!" Takuya announced, leading us to the small soccer pitch. "Goals are clearly marked, but we don't have enough players to make a goalie convenient. Just keep it away from your side of the field, I guess."

"Rec or real?" Junpei asked. Takuya thought for a moment.

"Rec," he decided with a nod, "Anything goes as long as no one gets hurt." He thought for another moment. "Anything except hands, of course." Tomoki looked disappointed and pulled a face behind him. Takuya dropped the ball in the approximate center and, following his cue, we all walked to halfway between the center and our goals on the field and faced off.

"Go for it," I whispered to Junpei; I would be backup for now. Takuya gave the word and Tomoki popped the ball into the air. Completely caught off-guard, Junpei ducked when he could have blocked it and it hurtled toward my head. I raised my forearms, recoiled at the shock of the ball bouncing off, then juggled it around Tomoki's scurrying feet. "Junpei, go on!" I shouted, and he darted up ahead to where Takuya had waited closer to his team's goal. I shot the ball toward my teammate, but it was intercepted and Takuya quickly handed (footed?) it off to Tomoki.

"Go, Tomi, go!" he yelled as I one-eightied to catch him again. Tomoki caught me out the corner of his eye and giggled as he sped up.

"Rotten kid!" I grated, as he neared the goal and I continued to lose ground. _You_ spend six weeks in a leg cast and have a footrace with a hyperactive thirteen-year-old.

"Gooooal!" Takuya crowed, flashing the 'peace' sign through both hands, a gesture Tomoki mirrored on the other side of the field. I staggered breathlessly towards him, and, completely out of spare breath for a grudging remark, I cuffed him upside the head.

"You're so out of shape, Kouji," he chided amiably, and I grunted in reply.

"Maybe you could help me with that," I answered properly when I'd caught sufficient breath again. He grinned smugly and I gave him another noogie for his cheek.

"Maybe," he assented. Izumi had trotted over the grass to watch. She tapped my shoulder.

"Want me to play?" I shrugged noncommittally and she brushed past. "You're going down, Takuya!" she jeered.

"What, you think I'll go easy on you just 'cos you're my girlfriend? Fat chance!" he taunted back. _I knew it. _The bickering went on in much the same strain, even through the game. Izumi and Junpei won. Then Tomoki wanted to play one-on-one with Izumi and Takuya came over to sit next to me on the grass while Junpei went to speak to some girls that had been watching us for a few minutes. Izumi's platinum blonde hair caught the sun and I carefully gazed sidelong at Takuya.

"Do you mind me asking how long you and Izumi have been going out?" He sighed happily and leaned back on his arms, watching the sky.

"About a year, I think. Izumi knows the exact day, though; girls are strange like that."

"Hm."

Tomoki scored a goal.

"So you've been okay, right?" Takuya said suddenly. When I turned to meet him he was fixing me with an odd look, one that I couldn't place.

"Of course," I replied, deciding to play it neutral until I figured out where he was coming from. "I've been great." Which, actually, was stretching the truth, but Takuya seemed to take it at that, though I could tell he was not content with it. His assenting nod seemed pained; I didn't know what to make of it, or whether to ask what was on his mind.

"That's good," he said quietly. When he didn't say anything else I hesitantly turned my attentions back to the game. Things never got back to feeling comfortable after that.

The sky was turning orange before everyone decided that was enough for the day. Everything was packed up, and our five reduced one by one until it was just me and Takuya, him walking with me to my bus stop before he left for the grocery store his father worked at. The setting sun was at its most intense, staining everything bright red-orange. Only a block away from the stop, he suddenly sighed and swung his arms up, lacing his fingers behind his head. We'd barely spoken the whole walk, but it sounded like he'd been wanting to say this for a long while.

"I didn't want to say anything in front of the others. You know how Izumi and Junpei are, and Tomoki shouldn't be hearing about things like that..." He paused and I stopped short, hands in my pockets, giving his back a guarded look. He stopped walking too, and he twisted to regard me with an expression I had trouble reading; not the carefree one that he had been wearing moments before. Something flickering behind his eyes made me want to run ahead of him and not look back.

"Like what?" I asked instead, fisting my hands defensively in my pockets. Takuya looked at a crack in the sidewalk for a moment, gathering his thoughts. His own discomfort made it impossible to relax.

"I noticed when we were watching the others play soccer... The scars on your wrists." All thought halted and my legs tensed to bolt right then. But Takuya's gaze held me tight. For a moment I just stared back at him, trying to keep my expression naive, but the heat pricking my cheeks gave everything away. Sighing, I dropped my gaze. Takuya said nothing, but I could feel his disappointment in the very air. My heart pounded; after getting my friends back, was I going to have to endure the pain of losing them again? I didn't want that to happen... I didn't want to feel completely alone again... But... Takuya was persistent; he'd get a proper confession out of me sooner or later.

"They're old," I finally murmured, trying to soften the blow any way I could. In all honesty, I was tired of running away from the fact that I _had_... And if anyone could make me face my fears, it would be Takuya. But what I said only seemed to have hurt him more.

Takuya dropped his arms to his sides, defeat taking him over. He had been hoping that I would give him a lie to make him feel better. But I couldn't lie to Takuya; not after everything else. "How long?"

"...Not anymore."

A strange sound escaped him; between a snort and a grunt of pain. "That's not what I meant," he said softly, and the pain was definitely there. "How long did you do it?"

I scuffed my toe on the concrete, unable to meet his eyes. "Two years."

"And you never said anything?" He said, incredulous. He stepped closer as his voice rose. "Kouji, do you know how _dangerous_ that is?" His eyes blazed at me. My old personality retaliated.

"Yes, Takuya; I nearly died two years ago because of it!" I snapped. The blood drained from his face and he abruptly turned his back to me, hands covering his eyes. My own anger melted away at the change, and my shoulders slumped.

"I've stopped," I said uselessly, trying to ignore the quiet hitching in his breath. "It's been two years since the last time..."

Takuya took a shuddering breath. His voice was low and thick. "You should have told us, Kouji..." He dropped his arms to hug himself, inclining his head. "We wouldn't have thought any less of you... We could have _helped_ you..."

I cast around for some excuse, a valid reason for me to have closed off to them when they were needed most. I finally said, "You know I don't like having people worrying over me."

"Goddammit, Kouji!" he shouted, wheeling on me and fisting my jacket, "Worrying is what friends _do_! It's what the people who _love you_ do!" Instead of shaking me, as he had always done before, he threw his arms around me and squeezed me tight. I froze in his grip, too caught off-guard to react. A long moment of complete, rigid silence passed between us before I shifted to make him let go. Gripping his shoulders, I forced him to look me in the eye.

"Takuya," I said evenly, "What's going on?" This couldn't just be about me and something that had happened two years ago; the emotion was too raw. His eyes slid to land on my wrist, and the white scars just barely peeking out from under my sleeve. Immediately he looked away. Not at my face, not at his feet. Away from everything. I didn't like the way his forehead was creasing as he fought back some emotion.

"It's my little brother. Shinya."

I dropped my arms to my sides as it started dawning on me. _No, please, God, not..._

"One of his friends at middle school found out and told me..." _A cousin had caught me and told Dad..._

"I don't know how she found out, when I never suspected a thing..." _I had always been extremely careful..._

_Except for the one time I let those precautions slide._

"Shinya's been cutting."

"Takuya," I said, not knowing what else wouldn't make things worse. A silent tear fell down his cheek and I tried not to look at it. I was at a loss for words; I let my arms hang limp, gazing mutely at him. He brushed an arm harshly across his eyes and sniffled. "Takuya..." He grabbed my wrist and turned it over, tracing the thicker scars that cut through my skin, his thumb trying to rub them away. "I--"

"I didn't want to think-- when I saw these..." He turned pleading eyes on me, so emotionally open I edged away from their intensity. "Kouji, you really have stopped, right?"

"I have, I promise." His mouth set itself into a tight line. "Takuya, you have to talk to Shinya about this, it's the--"

"You think I haven't tried?" His voice was that of a wounded animal. "Every time I get close to the subject he has soccer practice to go to, or he has to meet a friend somewhere, or he has a bad stomachache. I can't get through to him!" He covered his eyes again and I thrust my hands back into my pockets. "Shinya and I... We used to talk about _everything_, but now... with _this_... I feel like I barely know him."

Silence again. Long, and awkward. It did something to me, to see Takuya breaking down and crying like that. Throughout the Digital World, he had always stayed tough, had a comeback to everything that Cherubimon and the Royal Knights threw at us. The one time he cried, it had really seemed like the end of the world. It took a lot to break Takuya's spirit. To see him so defeated, broke something inside of me, too. I sighed quietly and leaned in.

"Do you want me to try to talk to him?" I asked, gently. He looked up, wide-eyed, and met my gaze. He blinked a few times and rubbed his arm awkwardly.

"Would you? Do you think you can reach him?"

I pushed the sleeve up on my arm again, index finger on the opposite hand following the cuts that had nearly killed me. "I have to. He'll be able to relate to me. And I'll know exactly what he feels." I looked up at him. Something like hope flickered behind his eyes, smothered by his fear and worry. Something occurred to me. "Your parents don't know, do they?" Takuya dropped his head. My heart couldn't decide whether to pound or sink. The result made me feel sick.

"I've wanted to tell them. But..."

"...You were scared of what might happen afterwards?" I offered. An ironic smile twitched the corners of his mouth upwards for the smallest second.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's why. Kouji?"

I'd started walking toward the bus stop again, hoping he would take my cue and fall into step beside me. I turned back to him, right where he'd been. Takuya looked more lost than I felt. There was a tight silence for a moment before he gave up on voicing the thought and decided to catch up at last. The silence continued until we reached the small shelter for waiting passengers. We remained tongue-tied until I saw my bus approaching. "Takuya," I said as I counted the bus fare from the cash in my pocket. I saw him shift in my peripheral vision and I knew he was listening. "Just promise me one thing." I met his eye and heard the hissing of the bus slowing down to meet the stop. He nodded. I took a breath. "If I can't do anything... if I can't help Shinya, promise me that you will tell your parents." His eyes widened and I redoubled my efforts. "Takuya, we don't know how severe this is; one day, Shinya might go too far and..." The thought hung and Takuya looked ill. "And the worst part is it might not even be on purpose," I whispered, flashes of blood splashing to the white bathroom tile clouding my vision for a brief second before Takuya nodded determinedly.

"You'd better get on the bus before they get mad at you," he said shakily. It was my turn to nod. "I promise," he muttered. One foot on the bus, I looked back at him in farewell. He gave a half-hearted wave and I boarded completely, dropped the fare into the till and took my seat.

--

_You're very brave_.

With a casual turn of the head I could just make out Kouichi's form settled on my bed, idly juggling a tennis ball between his hands. I went back to gazing out my window at the darkened sky. "Really?"

_Takuya is trusting his little brother with you, and you're accepting the challenge._

"Is it that amazing?" I mumbled, twirling my pen between my fingers. To be blunt, I was nervous about the impending intervention. I'd barely gotten to know Shinya during the time I still kept in touch with the rest of the gang, and now four years had passed. Was it overconfident of me to think that we would be able to connect on any level at all?

_Just remember that I believe in you, brother._

I smirked. "Are you able to read my mind now, too?" I looked to see him shrugging, an impassive expression carefully placed on his face.

_You tell me._

I shrugged in reply. Kouichi liked to show up twice a week or so to talk about my life. He insisted the Other Side (as we'd taken to calling it) was perpetually unchanging, therefore quite boring, and he invariably steered the conversation away from it every time I tried to ask after it.

_Have you thought about what you're going to say?_

An audible sigh blew past my lips and I leaned back in my desk chair to stare at the ceiling. My legs had been draped over the corner of my desk, but they were starting to fall asleep, so I dropped them to the floor. Then the chair started swinging back in forth as I tried to organize my thoughts. "No, I haven't," I admitted. "Do I ever really, though?"

_...No, you really don't._

I sighed again and glared lazily at him. The tennis ball dropped by my pillow and Kouichi swung his legs onto the mattress, pulling his knees up and resting his head on them. The glow in his eyes completed his thought; _and you know it._

"Whatever." I stood and gathered a set of pajamas from the bureau.

_Think about it a little bit, at least_, he said, _you don't want to spook him._

"Yeah," I said, not really paying attention anymore. When I came back in from my shower Kouichi had gone. It was always like this; he would show up with no preamble and then, most of the time, leave without any kind of farewell. He said it didn't make sense for him to say good-bye when he was always keeping an eye on me somehow no matter what, to which I replied that it was the thought that mattered.

Before I fell asleep, I found myself hoping that Kouichi's words had just been his own paranoia. Of course Shinya would close himself off once he caught on to what I was doing, but I'd tried to do the same thing when Dad confronted me. This time around... I hoped I would have an edge; Dad had had no idea why I was doing that to myself, and I never felt like I could tell him. Maybe it would have helped if I had, but it's too late to tell now. And even if I could have told him, he was too far and too long removed from his own teenage years to aptly put himself in my shoes. Shinya and I were closer in age; I could still remember how tough it is to be thirteen, especially when surrounded by other thirteen-year-olds that you can't hope to get away from. And even if the causes were sure to be different...

I rolled over and closed my eyes too tightly for sleep.

Even if the causes are different, the feeling of complete helplessness is always the same.

* * *

**...**

**Okay, _definitely_ took some leaps of faith with this one. Everything in the last half... just happened, too. I reread it after I put up the third chapter and I was all like O_O... And it continues with the next chapter but you have. to. review! :D**

**(Although, chances are I'll put it up sometime soon anyway. But I want to see if I get any reviews first!)**

**Click the little button you see below, please and thank you. :) I mean it; I wanna know what you guys think!  
**


	5. Facing Reality

**Well, this is me hoping that you will forgive me for the wait. As always, this could have been put up sooner, barring some minor corrections I've made just now. As it has been for the past couple chapters, I blame the insanity of senior year (and I mean INSANITY -- I just turned in my portfolio today, but now I have to put together a presentation. Not to mention I have to scour the 'net for scholarships to help cover the cost of college this fall. AND studying for the AP Calculus AB test in May, I might add). So, combine that with my plans to partake in Script Frenzy in April, I honestly couldn't tell you when the next chapter might be up. I hope this will hold you reasonably well until then.**

**I almost regret begging for reviews, now -- now I have people to please! XD I'm totally kidding, though; I love having proof that people are reading my stories!**

**That's enough bafflegab from me -- on to the next chapter! (And I am far too cheerful with this...)**

**Disclaimerjustcuz -- Digimon still doesn't belong to me. Alas, right?

* * *

**Dad always tells me to be careful when I go out alone. He never knew how well those words applied this time.

The late-summer sun beat down, a sharp contrast to the dark shadows that gave only a five-degree refuge from the stifling heat. I'd managed to find a long-sleeved shirt that served my intended purpose, but was also light enough that I wouldn't be sweltering ten minutes after walking out the door.

Takuya had told in his email that he and Shinya would be going to the park around three in the afternoon. That gave me an hour to get across town and not die of heatstroke in the process. Thankfully the bus and the ice cream shop near the park had good air conditioning. Even so, the summer heat radiated off the concrete sidewalk into the doorway, where I was waiting for a sight of either of them. I'd timed it so that I shouldn't have to wait too long.

Sun glinting off huge goggles made me tense in apprehension for one moment before easily getting up and walking across the street. On the inside I felt anything but ready. But I needed to do this; too much counted on it. Takuya and Shinya walked through the park entrance one after the other. I followed after them seconds later. At the first fork in the pathway, I considered branching away. But rather than follow through I just stood there, roasting already and looking like nothing short of an idiot. A covert glanced showed that Shinya had taken roost on a park bench, and Takuya was talking up the girl at the ice cream vendor – too old for him, even if he wasn't already dating Izumi; he was just having fun and getting himself away from the center of imminent tension. After taking a steadying breath, I walked as naturally as I could toward Shinya, alone on the bench, and looking not quite like the bright, happy kid I'd barely gotten to know before... Well, everything that had happened. It was to be expected, I suppose, of someone entering adolescence. I don't know why I was still being surprised by how everyone I used to know had changed.

Maybe because they'd mostly changed in good ways...

He looked up as he heard me approach, squinted eyes scanning me up and down, a puzzled expression on his face. So he must have recognized me from _some_where, he just couldn't come up with the place and name.

"Hey, Shinya," I said with a carefully applied amount of cheer, hoping he would catch on fast.

"Do I know you?" No such luck, apparently... Well, I had known nothing about this was going to be easy.

The old wooden bench creaked a little when I sat on it, staring ahead casually. "You probably don't remember me. I'm an old friend of your brother's." With this new information he retreated into intense thought. Before long his eyes lit up and he snapped his fingers.

"Oh yeah, the ponytail guy!"

I only just stopped my hand from flying to the back of my (ponytail-free) neck, a grimly amused expression on my face instead. "...Yes."

Shifting uncomfortably, glancing toward Takuya in the interval, he finally replied, "I thought you weren't friends anymore..."

I tossed out any second thoughts on that and simply answered, "We're friends. Don't worry about it."

He took that with an accepting nod and seemed to ignore me for the moment. The momentum of that conversation was lost, and that was fine. It meant I could get to the purpose of this whole thing much quicker, and hopefully get out of it with some part of my nerves intact. I suddenly noticed out of the corner of my eye that he was wearing short sleeves, and I could see, very clear in the bright sun, the fine red lines running across his arms. Natural concern was... well, natural.

"What happened to your arm?" I asked him, applauding myself for sounding genuinely worried. "That's a lot of scratches."

He faltered for a moment; he hadn't been doing this for very long after all, or by now the reply would be automatic. "...My cat got _really_ mad at me," he said finally, sounding really exasperated. Doing my best to make it look nonchalant, I pulled my sleeve higher up on my arm.

"Yeah," I said, lowering my arm to where Shinya could see it clearly, "Mine, too." He swallowed hard and looked very trapped. "Shinya--"

"My brother put you up to this, didn't he?" he glowered. I kept my face and voice neutral. But inside I was rattled; he'd caught on quick.

"Yeah, he did. Shinya!" He glared at me, and wrenched against the hold I suddenly had on his upper arm. "Shinya," I said more softly, "Will you listen to me?" He struggled and I didn't budge. With a resigned sigh he resumed his seat on the bench. "Yes, Takuya asked me to talk to you, because he feels that every time he tries, you keep pushing him away. He loves you a lot, you know."

"Yeah, sure," Shinya retorted, "Sending his friends to bully me into spilling my guts."

"It's not like that at all, and you know it," I snapped. I took a breath to gather myself and continued in a considerably calmer voice. "It's _because_ he loves you that he's asked me to help. He's trying really hard to reach you, Shinya, to get you to talk to him about this, but you keep closing yourself up."

He turned a critical eye on me. "And he thinks that sending in someone that I can 'relate to' will make it all better?" I sighed quietly.

"Shinya," I murmured, "I want to know if you understand what you're doing. I want to know what's making you do this, so we can fix it."

"'We' don't need to fix anything. I've got it under control." He curled his hands around the lip of the bench again, preparing to leave. I had to lean forward and look up to see his eyes. Humiliation already reddened his ears and his gaze fixed straight at his knees.

"That's what I thought, too." He blinked, but the anger stayed. "But one day – maybe in a month, or six, or even tonight – you're going to get so angry or so upset that you won't be able to stop yourself." Here he stood and glared at me, fists clenched at his sides.

"I'm not an idiot," he glowered. I jumped to my feet and stared him down, keeping my ire at bay but my gaze stern. I showed him my wrist again, pointing to the largest scar.

"Shinya, two years ago, when I was barely your age, I nearly died from cutting. I had been careful up until then, and I thought I was okay, but that time, I just couldn't stop myself. I didn't realize what I had done until my dad broke down the bathroom door and screamed at the sight of me." Feinting to one side, he tried to bolt around the other, but I grabbed him quickly and practically threw him back down to the bench, holding him in place. "Shinya! Are you listening to me at all?" He pouted his lip stubbornly; I ignored his discomfort completely. He _needed_ to hear this. "You want to know something? I was _glad_ that Dad caught me; it meant that pulling myself out of it wasn't entirely in my hands anymore; I didn't have to take the whole burden of it; I wasn't alone anymore. Shinya, no matter how you feel now, you have to know that there are people who love you and would be heartbroken to learn about something like this." Tears welled in his eyes, but I couldn't let up now or I'd lose it, too. "You have people in your life who are completely willing to accept you and your problems, and who will help you pull out of this every step of the way. I mean your _brother_, Shinya!"

_If Kouichi had been--_

"He came to me because he was out of options. He didn't know what to do; he couldn't relate to you anymore. It takes a lot of courage, and a lot of love to ask someone to help them help their loved one with something like this."

_Something I could never do--_

"What will happen if you do go too far? You won't think at the time that anyone would be sad; you'll only have yourself convinced that you don't matter, and that if you could only end your life everyone would be sorry then that they'd been mean to you before. But that's not true."

"Shut up!" Shinya wailed, jerking himself away and leaving the bench, leaving me there shaking, almost seething. Something I'd said... something had happened that left my blood boiling and my heart beating too fast. He stood silent, back to me, for a few moments. I pulled my sleeve back down. "Don't... Just shut up."

After a long moment of tense silence I realized I was crying, too, silently, and clutching my wrist, the one I had cut too deep. Shinya never wavered. Vaguely I wondered where Takuya was and how much he had heard. The scattered people watching us never became conscious thought. Their murmurings melded with the thick, hot wind blowing through the tree leaves.

Finally, after tear tracks had run down my face, I broke the thick silence. "Shinya," I said evenly, "The reason... is only important if you want it to be. I do know what you are feeling when you do it, because I've been through it, too. I want you to know that you _can_ pull yourself out of this, but you might not be able to do it on your own. And I want you to know that we – Takuya and I – are here for you to talk to about anything. We'll listen, and we won't repeat anything that you don't want us to. As long as you need a healthier outlet for your emotions, we'll be here."

He said nothing. I stayed rooted where I stood, knowing this was a fragile situation. One word, one movement, could make the difference between success and failure.

"So what does Takuya want, then?" he asked, and the question threw me off-balance where I had been expecting a harsh, angered reply. But he almost sounded calm, but the undertone rattled me. He was challenging me, Takuya, whoever. Testing us. Before it became obvious I didn't know what to do about the question, Takuya stepped in for me, standing between me and Shinya.

"Shinya," he began, voice struggling to stay level, "I just want my little brother back."

I closed my eyes, silently praying to whoever was listening that those would be the magic words. When I opened them... Shinya was facing Takuya, face glistening with tears, fists and jaw clenched. He didn't look particularly angry. Rather, he looked lost, frightened and confused like an abandoned puppy. But he had no reply to Takuya's wish. With an angry growl he stomped away, and murmurs swept around again. Takuya shifted his eyes around at all of them in an intense emotion that I couldn't place, and for a second they landed on me. I involuntarily cringed inward.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean for it to get that loud," I said quietly. A pained smile for one heart wrenching second, then gone again.

"I know you couldn't help it." I chose not to pass judgment on that one. "...Still. Thanks for trying," he said. With little apparent energy left he slumped on the bench, not looking at me for a very long moment.

"Don't you want to go after Shinya?" I asked, not afraid of letting the worry run into my voice. Takuya considered for a moment, turning his head in the direction his brother had gone.

"Kouji, I have no frickin' idea what I should do."

Rubbing my palms into my eyes, I sighed wearily. "I think all you can do right now is wait and see what happens." I didn't like saying it, but if Takuya wanted an honest reply, I gave it to him.

He fiddled anxiously with the zip on one of his shorts pockets. "What if he... what if he cuts again?"

I had to look away to think. Takuya just looked so _vulnerable_, I couldn't stand it. "Whatever you do, don't scold him for it. Chances are he'll already know he did the wrong thing. Just ask him what's wrong, or sit with him if he won't talk. Even if he doesn't open up, he has to know that you'll make good on your word and be there for him no matter what. Oh," I added when he nodded and appeared ready to shut down, "Don't ever discount his opinions or feelings on something just because he's thirteen. You remember being thirteen, right?" After a short recollection he nodded in understanding. I sighed in relief, but I stayed on my soapbox for just a moment longer to say, "Listen, and comment, but don't critique, and don't give advice unless he says he doesn't know what to do. Or at least ask first."

Takuya just nodded again. I guess by that point he didn't have the energy for any other kind of reaction. A feeling of dread hung heavily about him, and I felt myself shudder at it. I suppose he didn't feel any better about the results of this intervention than I did. At a loss for anything further to say, I took a seat next to him on the bench, nervously pulling at my shirt sleeves. After a few seconds I was aware of Takuya watching this, but I chose to ignore him. Anyone else who had been watching, had all moved away. I wiped my eyes again and let out a long, weary breath. It had all been necessary, but... But. I didn't know what. Something still felt off and it bugged me. Occasionally I glanced around to see if Shinya was coming back at all, but I saw no sign of him. In the end, I concluded that there wasn't much else I could do besides what I'd promised him. I'd said my piece. What happened next was largely for Takuya and Shinya to work out between themselves. I could only be emotional support for Takuya, because this was hard for him, and he was my friend.

_'It's what the people who love you do...'_

"What's bothering you?" Takuya asked suddenly.

"Huh?" I asked, looking back to him. A slight frown creased his forehead.

"You never used to be this fidgety." Looking back at my hands, I realized only then that I had been tugging my sleeve up and down my arm furtively during the whole interlude. A weak laugh escaped without my consent, and I fell silent again. After a long silence where he didn't seem wont to drop the subject, I shook my head.

"I closed myself off from the world for so long, I guess I forgot how ugly it is."

He leaned forward abruptly like he was going to tell me off, but I'd already stood to leave. "I really don't want to hear it, Takuya. We don't need another fight." When no reply came I looked back. He still leaned forward, hands hanging between his knees, shoulders slumped. Exasperated with myself, I pushed my hands in my pockets and bowed my head so I wouldn't have to face him. "Takuya, there's so much we could talk about, but now isn't the time. You need to help your brother, and I can only do so much. I've given you a push. It's up to you to keep moving."

Looking back once I reached the park entrance showed that he had left the bench. I couldn't see him anywhere.

* * *

**...**

**This got pretty intense on me -- I remember rereading this for the first time in well over a month and going "...Whoa; where the heck did _that_ come from?" But I think it's good that I got that sort of reaction from my own writing. I _think_...**

**The "soapbox" comment is completely Kouji making fun of me, the author, by the way. Because I was very much on a soapbox in the first draft of this chapter, and in fact I had to cut down his dialogue because it was sounding a little too much like me (though I think he might still -- Kouji seems like the type to think for a long time and then rant in a pedantic sort of way once he gets mad enough, and unfortunately I do the same thing). This is the reason I don't typically do first-person narration, but meh. Learning experience! Embrace it!  
**

**At any rate, I hope the intervention comes across as somewhat realistic -- I've never had an active part in an intervention (yes, this means I have been part of one -- just not a key player), so I had to trust my instincts with this one. I hope everyone is reasonably in character, and I'll try to do a better job next time if they aren't.**

**In the meantime, sign the guest book, please! :D  
**


	6. Haunted

**I have a list of excuses, if anyone's curious... Or not.**

**As always, this could have been posted way way sooner, but a big part of the reason I delayed was that I wanted to be sure that the choices made here were choices that I could build off of in future chapters. Obviously, I have deemed them build-off-able.**

**Y'know that trigger warning that I stuck in the summary? Well...  
**

**All that said, I present to you the sixth chapter.**

**Digimon does not belong to me.

* * *

**

I felt so self-conscious on the trip home, like rather than try to help a friend I had actually committed a low crime, and I could be found out at any moment if I did even one thing wrong. It was highly irrational, but I couldn't help shifting my eyes to every face that seemed to look at me for too long (the fact that most of these people were actually girls around my age didn't comfort me at all, oddly enough).

I could hear chatter from the kitchen as I silently entered the house. It sounded like Dad was helping Satomi with dinner. I stole quietly up the stairs and shut the bathroom door behind me. There I stopped short, leaning heavily against the door, still trembling a little. What had happened in the park had affected me more than I'd wanted Takuya to know. More and more as I stood there, absorbed in what had occurred, what had been said, flashes from the past and from nightmares obstructed my vision – arms bleeding, metal glinting, life support systems beeping, heat pouring, my father screaming. I shook my head hard and went to the sink to splash water into my face, clear my head. Hot blood, cold rain. Gauzy towel wiping it all up. I impulsively threw the cloth away and stared at my reflection. It looked panicked. "Stop," I told it, watching my mouth form the words, "Stop it!" I fisted my hand and raised it, but didn't throw it anywhere. Just let it float, contemplative. My reflection shook, wavered on its feet. I dropped my fist and leaned against the counter top, staring into the sink, like I could dissolve into it and be whisked away. Stared at everything around it. Soap dispenser, toothbrush cup. Shaving razor. I took a step away, watching it warily. Like it might jump at me. The thought of that didn't scare me nearly as much as realizing that the sight of it calmed me down.

–

_I should have never done it._

_It had looked so friendly, sitting there, in the toothbrush cup by the sink, innocent._

_I had heard about it in whispers at school. My big brother does it. My older cousin does it. She said it was the only thing she could do. He said it made his pain go away._

_So I reached. Rolled up my sleeve._

_And let it bite._

_The sting breached my defenses faster and more strongly than any heartache could. The hot, sharp slide of metal through skin. A lingering burn as blood seeped out, beading in tight edges. My hands trembled even as I realized what I had done, but the high that followed canceled it out to something really not that dangerous. Just something that I had to keep secret, was all._

_My hand clenched and the cut pulled apart again, bleeding faster, and I started to panic. There was no way it could kill me. But it didn't bleed the way a cat scratch did. The instant I wiped the blood away there was just as much replacing it. I ran water across the cut, soaped it until the pain made my eyes water, anything to convince myself that it really was okay, that nothing was wrong._

_I sat on the rim of the tub, holding a washcloth to the still-bleeding cut, shaking._

_From the way kids talked about it at school, I should have been feeling better. In some way, I did._

_So why was I so scared, that I couldn't stop myself from crying?_

–

_Drip, drip, drip..._

Tiny little splatters on clean tiled floor. Warm trails of red liquid running down my fingers. I didn't deserve the right to cover it up.

_Drip, drip, drip..._

In a morbid fascination I watched it fall, watched it stain. I barely realized it still hurt.

_Drip..._

In an instant Kouichi fell at my side and I couldn't meet his eye. I hung my head as he examined my wrist.

_Oh, Kouji..._

I should have never done it again.


	7. A Little Circle of Hell All Your Own

**Well, I figured you'd get to the end of the previous chapter and go, "All that waiting and this is the little thing we get?" So here's Chapter 7. (On that note, I hope that wasn't too difficult for you to read, but it may be that this won't be much better.)  
**

**This... I've probably spent the most actual writing time on this chapter, out of all the others thus far. It was difficult to write, and there were several partial rewrites and additions and deletions. Some parts and elements of it just didn't sit right with me for a long time, and a couple months ago I realized why it wasn't quite giving me that feeling that I wanted from it. So I changed some things until I was satisfied, and now here you are.**

**Enough useless writer-talk that the audience doesn't care about, now. Onward!**

**Digimon still doesn't belong to me. In case you've forgotten.

* * *

**When you cut, you never think about what will happen afterward. All that will stay in your mind is that you're hurting, and there's no one you can turn to, and making yourself bleed is the only thing that will help you now.

If you cut once, you can't turn back. Not completely. Because that nasty little thing called memory will take note of that high, that little rush of endorphins that dulls your emotional pain just enough to let you think that maybe you can recover from this, live through one more day. So the next time your emotions are raging, there's a spark of recognition that you can make the pain better just like that. No matter how strongly you believe after the one time that you won't ever do it again, you might not be strong enough to walk away the next time.

You never think about the aftermath. You never remember in time that every cut you make is a cut that you'll have to hide from prying eyes. Every cut is another potential scar that you'll have to carry for the rest of your life, long after the scabs rub away, long after you stop.

If you ever stop.

–

I sat, motionless, against my bed when Dad came up to let me know dinner was ready. I could smell it, the savory aroma of meat and cloudy smell of steamed vegetables. I didn't move. My wrist was unbandaged, the blood dried darkly over the skin of my hand. He saw it, and I couldn't find it in me to try to hide it, or to explain it.

"Kouji," he exhaled, hand still hanging on the doorknob. I winced at the pain in his voice. With an effort I kept my breath even, but I doubted I could do so for much longer. I still shook from it. There came the sound of my door closing, and Dad stood in front of it, hands loose at his sides. I couldn't look at him beyond tracking him from my peripheral vision. I just stared at my updrawn knees, arms crossed loosely around them. I heard Dad taking a steadying breath and braced myself. "What happened?" he asked. I blinked and tried to remember, staring hard at the floor in front of me.

Finally, in answer, I shook my head.

"You don't know, or you don't want to tell me?"

I knew. I took a deep breath and let it out in a shaky sigh. I was afraid I'd start crying if he stayed in the room much longer. Hell, I was certain I would start crying anyway, but I didn't want my father to be there when I did. "I don't know how much I can tell you," I said finally, pushing my hands into my hair, "There's... Oh, it's all so screwed up." I didn't want to betray Takuya's trust, and I didn't want to bring up complicated subjects like Kouichi and his death, or sound like a lunatic for talking about communing with his ghost. I couldn't tell him about anything without having to talk about everything. "I'm fine, Dad," I said quietly, not moving any further, "I'll be okay." He shifted on his feet and I cautiously glanced up at his face. Worry lines creased his forehead, and his mouth set in a grim line. He didn't _look_ angry. But the way his knuckles stood white as his fist gripped the doorknob showed how hard he was fighting against any kind of outburst with all his will.

"Kouji, as your father, you know I can't just take that and be happy with it."

Sighing, I stared at my knees, loosening my grip on my hair. "I know." Sounds of him taking the chair from my desk and sitting in it let me know that he planned to talk this out. Whether I wanted to right now or not. Yet the silence stretched for a long, rigid moment. I wrapped my arms around my knees and rested my chin on them.

Finally, with a weary sigh, Dad gestured toward my wrist. "You really should clean that up. It could get infected." I lifted it a couple inches to get a better look, then dropped it back down, limp. The blood had already dried; the razor had been mine. Nothing to worry about, really. I shrugged. "Kouji," he said firmly, and my gaze slid to him, "What's on your mind?"

With a sigh bordering on a growl, I answered, "I told you, Dad; I don't know what I can say that will be enough for you. There's so much, and it's all interconnected, and..." I buried my face in my arms, "Honestly, sometimes I can't make sense of it, either."

Silence again, growing tense as I tried to organize everything into a summary that would satisfy his concerns without giving anything away. "Did something happen when you went out today?" I froze completely. _Don't make me face it..._ "_Anything_ you can tell me about?"

I couldn't tell him about anything without having to talk about everything.

"I'm sorry. I can't... I'm trying to find my own way through this. I just got overwhelmed."

"By what?"

I shrugged hopelessly again. "_Everything_. Things I can't tell you about. I'm sorry, but I really _can't_, Dad," I insisted when he seemed about to ask me what sort of things.

"Well, son, I can't help you if I don't know what's bothering you."

"I know-"

"Do you even want help of any kind, or am I just wasting my time here?" I looked up, a little shocked at the sudden change. He pointed at my wrist again. "Is this what is going to happen every time you try to find your own way through something?"

I bristled, hurt. "That's not fair."

"No, Kouji, what isn't fair is that my own son would rather do _this_ to himself than talk to me about his problems."

"Dad," I pleaded, heat crawling behind my eyes. I looked away, unable to face him any longer as he stood and towered over me without even coming any closer. I hated having to keep things like this from him, but I only wished he could just _understand_ that sometimes there were things I _could not_ talk to him about. "I'm fine," I muttered in a choked voice, though his aggravated sigh stung my whole body, "It's a one-time thing, I _promise_," I insisted, even as I heard his footsteps reach the door. "I'll be okay tomorrow." _I always would be..._

"It won't be okay, Kouji. And that's something you'll have to accept."

The door shut too quietly and I bit hard into my knuckles to keep from crying out as the tears spilled over down my face.

I could wash the blood off. I could wrap bandages around my wrist. I could wear a wrist brace to cover it. I could wear long sleeves.

I could lie to the whole world and they would never know.

And I knew in my mind that I would never do this again. Never.

But I needed to be allowed to believe that.

Instead, everyone yelled at me. Takuya, Dad. Kouichi.

I gripped at my hair again and tried to push Kouichi's furious, tear-stained face out of my mind. I had never seen him like that before. Even when I'd first cleansed his Dark Spirits and he'd tried to walk away, he'd been more irritated and frustrated with himself than angry at anyone else in particular. This time all his rage had been directed _at me_, and more than ever I felt so sorry that I'd sunk so low.

"God," I murmured, closing my eyes and leaning more heavily against my bed, fingernails digging into my scalp. "God, what is wrong with me?" I said in a harsh whisper as more tears fell faster, hissing as weaker scabs on my wrist pulled apart and the cuts bled anew. The blood disgusted me. I wanted to wash it all off, or throw up, but I also didn't want to move. If I moved, it would break whatever fragile illusion of order I still had left, make me realize the true gravity of what I had done, and I wouldn't be able to live with myself if that happened. "What the hell is wrong with me?" All I wanted to do was scream it, beg the world to tell me what was so wrong with me that I deserved everything bad that had ever happened to me, that was happening to me now. But I couldn't do that, either. I couldn't let the world know where I was and what I was going through. It would be too much to take; all the questions, concerned looks, wary glances at the hidden scars that they knew were there.

I stared at the blood – _my_ blood – all over my hand and shuddered, wanted to look anywhere but at my hand. I glanced at my door, considered going to the bathroom to wash the blood away. But I knew the razor was in there, too, and I knew I couldn't be trusted anywhere near it.

The blood itched. I flexed my hand, wrist, fingers, waved it around, brushed it lightly across my pants, anything to avoid having to go to the bathroom where that razor sat to wash it off. But the itching only got worse.

Finally, I gave up, slowly rising to my feet and twisting the doorknob with my clean hand. I brushed through the resulting gap and tread down the hall and didn't shut the bathroom door behind me. The water felt too warm on my frigid hand, but this time it felt strangely welcome, too. Almost cleansing... Once I gently toweled my injured wrist dry and looked at what was left of the cuts, I decided maybe the situation was bad, but not _so_ bad. I hadn't been stupid about it; it took only a few cuts to bring me to my senses...

"What is wrong with me," I said dully as the last tears fell, unable to believe what I was thinking. Throwing the blood-stained washcloth in the hamper, I turned my attentions to the medicine cabinet and located the gauze, cotton pads, and disinfectant. I hated the familiarity of the routine.

I knew I didn't have many long-sleeved shirts that wouldn't be hell in the hot sun, but I looked anyway. I didn't want to face it – after coming so far, here I was, right at the beginning again: scrounging for cover-ups, lies, and excuses.

You never remember in time all the actions that you're forced to take if you don't want anyone to find out what you did to yourself.

A shrill ring made me jump a foot before I realized it was my cell phone, still in my pocket. I hastily took it out and flipped it open. _Takuya_. Suddenly apprehensive, I pressed the answer button.

"Takuya?" I said, trying to sound as calm as when I left him.

"Kouji?" his voice came into my ear, sounding panicked.

"What's up?" I asked, dreading the answer.

"Shinya's not home yet. I never saw him after the park. You haven't seen him, have you?"

"I live across town, Takuya," I reminded him quietly, letting the rest of it hang – what reason would Shinya have to come all the way over here?

"Right, right," Takuya muttered hastily, and I could picture him shaking his head at himself, "Well, if you do... I mean, you probably wouldn't anyway, but-"

"Takuya," I interjected, and he cut himself off. "Breathe. I'm sure there's nothing to worry about." The fact that the day's events had been enough to make me cut after being clean for _two years_ glared me very obviously in the face and I cast for something more reassuring to say. "Maybe he found a friend, or something."

"I've called all his friends; they haven't seen him either."

Okay... "Did you try calling him?"

"He won't pick up, and he hasn't answered any of my texts."

I scratched my head worriedly, already feeling his panic seeping into my chest. "Look, if he doesn't show up in another half-hour or so, give me a call and I'll try to get out of the house to help you look for him, okay?"

"No, no, you don't have to; I think I could find him myself," Takuya said hurriedly. A sigh crackled over the line before he said, sounding regretful, "Look, man, I'm sorry I had to bother you, but..." A bit of that desperate whine I'd heard yesterday crept into his voice and I understood.

"It's okay," I told him.

"Normally I wouldn't be, but after hearing about... and _today_... but I don't know how long he's been doing it, so I don't know if I even should be worried that he's not home yet, because he's been staying out late a lot since he started middle school anyway, and..." he sighed again and I shifted on my feet. "Maybe he just went to a friend's house to cool off, huh. Told 'em not to say he was there or something."

There was a long pause as I tried to think of something to say.

"I guess I'll..." Takuya started awkwardly.

"Let me know when he comes home, all right?" I asked him, "Or if he doesn't. Just let me know." He muttered an affirmative and the call disconnected. As I put my phone back in my pocket I lifted my bandaged wrist in front of my eyes.

After a split-second decision I threw open my window and leapt to a sturdy pine limb four feet out. When I was younger, I used to get out of the house by jumping to the branch and climbing down in the mornings before school, so I wouldn't have to deal with Satomi. Now I was tall enough that from the branch I could just hang down and drop.

I landed catlike and froze for a moment to see whether I'd been noticed. Nothing; I then ran out onto the curb and took off toward the bus station. But after a few blocks I slowed suddenly to a stop, my sense finally catching up and overtaking my impulses. I didn't have the slightest idea where Shinya might be if not in the park, if not at home or at a friend's – I didn't _know_ his friends – and getting lost on the other side of town wouldn't help anything.

And yet... I flexed my injured wrist and clenched my fists – I couldn't just _sit around_ and _wait_ for the red flags to be at the top of the mast if I could already see them being run up. Ignoring the stares, ignoring how hot it had already become, I continued running for the bus stop. Even if I couldn't know where to start, getting to his neighborhood in due time was at least a start – and there was no way to tell how much time I had left.

–

The air had only barely cooled, even though the sun had since begun lowering in the sky. All that seemed to do was make it harder to see; as the sun no longer glared from overhead but more to the side, it forced me to squint every time I happened to glance westward. The inconvenience didn't help my increasingly frantic mood. Takuya had called me just north of halfway across town to blurt that he didn't care what I or his mom or anyone said, he was going to look for Shinya until he found him. I'd tried to talk him down to at least waiting for me to meet him in the park to discuss a strategy, but he was too worried; he insisted sending each other text messages of our movements through town would be sufficient. He hung up and wouldn't pick up again when I redialed, so I'd leaned back in my seat hard enough to bang my skull against the headrest (I think I'd been hoping the action would wake me up). As I stepped off the bus, a glimpse of Takuya disappearing around the corner erased any immediate need for a first text message, and I took off after him. "Takuya! Wait up!" I shouted as I whipped around the corner. He broke his pace long enough to see it was me, then slowed to as quick a walk he could manage without it becoming a jog.

"What took you so long?" he panted, "I've already checked around my neighborhood. I'm heading for one of his friends' houses."

"Where do you want me to look?" I asked quickly before he could sprint off again. He glanced behind us.

"I don't know; the shops over there? Let me know if you find him." Then he was gone. I checked the time on my cell phone and groaned inwardly. Seven o'clock. And with the sky already changing color, I really hoped Shinya would be found before it got dark. I can't speak for Takuya, but I myself don't do well in the dark, even with streetlights and neon signs everywhere in town. It just... doesn't work. Plays too many tricks on my eyes.

So I turned on my heel and ran in the opposite direction.

There were innumerable cafes and shops and popular teen hangouts in the area, but everywhere I looked came up empty. I put myself in Shinya's shoes and tried to decide where he was most likely to go, but my thoughts were only guaranteed for immediately after the fact – either burning off my aggression at an arcade with a shooter game, or cooling down with an ice cream sundae. Once the game got boring or the ice cream was gone, I couldn't think of anything.

Honestly, though, after such an intense confrontation, I couldn't imagine Shinya would want to be around people right now. When my cousin had caught me cutting myself in the bathroom at a family gathering, I could barely function for the rest of the day; I think only my reputation for being so introverted in the first place kept people from asking why I absolutely would not say anything. There had been no way for me to know who my cousin might have already told, and I didn't want to risk breaking that bubble of not-knowing by drawing more attention to myself than was necessary.

If Shinya's thought process ran anything like mine, he wouldn't want to be around his friends – especially since it had _been_ one of his friends who had tipped off Takuya.

The sky directly overhead had turned blue-violet and I was running out of places to look. I checked my phone again and, after noting the time, checked the text message Takuya had evidently sent me five minutes prior, while I had been too absorbed in hunting to notice the alert.

_Not at any friend's house. Any luck?_

I swiftly replied, _No_, and let out a sigh. That had only confirmed what I had been thinking – not comforting at all. I continued walking, purposelessly now that I couldn't come up with any new plans of action. My phone chirped at me again.

_Keep looking._

The phone shut with a small clap and I shoved it my pocket, gritting my teeth to keep from letting out a choice expletive at the top of my lungs at the injustice of it all. My usefulness waned as the sky darkened, I needed to be home by curfew or else get in an even deeper mess with Dad – more than I was already in because he'd had no idea I was leaving the house – it was still too hot, I was tired, and my _feet_ hurt.

A bus stop sat right ahead. For a fast moment I considered telling Takuya he was on his own for the rest of the night, but before I could go to the texting menu, a message from a number I didn't recognize flashed up on the screen. I balked at it, distracted out of my original intent to where I momentarily forgot what I was supposed to do, then my brain got back up to speed and I pressed the button to receive it.

_Lk 2 ur rite_

...Huh? O-kay...

An alley. I could see into it for maybe three feet, then it looked nothing but pitch black. I glanced at the screen again and then back to the alley. Then my phone chirped with another message.

_Cm in_

I raised an eyebrow at the screen – what the hell was going on?

Reply:

_NO._

Send. Wait. A moment later:

_I dnt wnt 2 tlk out thr_

Fed up with it all, I obstinately placed my free hand on my hip and glared into the black mouth of the alley. "Well, I have common sense, and it's telling me I should never, ever enter a dark alley, so either come out here, or I'm leaving."

After another long moment I growled in frustration, thrust both hands in my pockets and started turning to leave, before a voice called a quiet, strained, "Wait!" and its owner shuffled out just enough into the light that I could see him.

"Goddamn it, Shinya!" I lashed out, more irritated at the moment than relieved, grabbing his sleeve and dragging him further out before he could retreat, "Do you know how long Takuya and I have been looking for you?"

"Let go of me," he muttered, so quietly I could barely hear him.

"Takuya's been worried sick about you for hours," I continued in a progressively softer tone, taking note of his despondence. Shinya said nothing, and I carefully let go of his jacket. He didn't look at me; he placed his hands in his pockets and sat against the alley wall, drawing his knees up. "Where have you been?" He shrugged, lips moving like he thought he might answer, but then he didn't. I suddenly thought of Kouichi, the way he was when he first came into the group; so worried and so paranoid from his past mistakes that he didn't want to say anything if it meant things wouldn't get any worse. I pushed the pang of hurt out of my mind. "Why didn't you go home?"

His head turned ever so slightly back toward the alley; I only just noticed it. "...I don't really want to go home right now," he said, in that worryingly small voice. It took two reverse steps to get to the bus stop bench, and I leaned against the back of it. He hadn't turned at all to follow my movement; I continued speaking to almost his back.

"Why not?"

Though he didn't say anything, I just perceived him stiffening.

"Is it anything to do with today?"

I was surprised to see him shaking his head. "...It's not _that_... It's... It doesn't... _really_ matter."

I folded my arms and raised an eyebrow at the back of his head. But nothing else came. "I don't believe you," I said firmly. Shinya's head bowed lower and his shoulders began quivering. I rubbed my temples wearily, anything to bolster my frayed nerves. The last thing I wanted was for him to be crying again, but it looked like he would be anyway. "Shinya... I meant what I said, earlier. Whatever you're going through, chances are I've been there." Nothing, still. I reached into the back of my mind for memories from my first year of middle school, anything to help connect. I had stopped cutting by the end of that year; as far as anyone knew, Shinya hadn't been doing it himself for very long. "I'm going to ask you one thing, and I want you to answer me honestly."

His head turned slightly toward me; I knew he was listening.

"Is something happening at school?" A different, tenser kind of silence. I found myself leaning forward, but determinedly kept quiet should he reply. After a long moment of nothing, I assured him, "You can tell me."

After a long while he sighed and from where I stood it looked like he might finally say something... but then thought better of it and his shoulders dropped again. So it was something he was embarrassed about... That narrowed it down to... well, still too many things. And now I was really getting frustrated.

My cell phone rang and I barely glanced away from Shinya as I took it out of my pocket.

_Calling: Takuya_

Right as my thumb hovered over the green 'ANSWER' button, Shinya said, "Don't answer it."

As the phone continued ringing, I looked back up at him. "Why shouldn't I?"

He shrugged. I glanced at the screen again, and Takuya's name with the animated phone being picked up over and over again, and all to the sound of a high-pitched ringing.

"Give me a reason," I reiterated. He glared icily at me.

"Because I know it's my brother, and I don't want to see him, either."

"Shinya, did you pay any attention at all?"

"To what?"

Was he being thick on purpose? I bit back the accusation and inhaled sharply as I tried to keep my anger in check; getting confrontational wouldn't help here. "Why don't you want to talk to Takuya?"

"Because he told you about..." To end his sentence he lifted his left wrist – the one he had been cutting. I shook my head in aggravation.

"I told you already; he had no other options. Don't make me repeat everything I said to you, because I wouldn't have said it any different."

He fell silent at that, though he still didn't turn his head. Sighing, I looked down at my cell phone and realized it had already stopped ringing.

"Don't call him." Now he looked at me out the corner of his eye. I snarled at him.

"Well, you're not leaving me with much to work with if you won't talk or let me talk. It's late; you need to get home, and I have to take a forty-five minute bus trip to get to my own house. Unless you have a deep, dark secret that you're dying to tell me and that I must never tell anyone else including your brother on pain of a slow, agonizing death, there isn't much more I can do for you right now." Immediately I felt the atmosphere change; I don't know if it was in the way his shoulders suddenly slumped as he bowed his head, or the difference in the emotion I felt rolling off of him, or my own paranoia, but suddenly the air felt thicker. As if taboo incarnate were weighing on us like a heavy tarp. From my perch on the back of the bench, I watched Shinya shift toward the alley mouth again. Tapping my fingers listlessly against one of the bench boards, I leaned forward and said quietly, "_Is_ there something you've been wanting to say?" And then I watched him use the wall to stand, watched him turn his face back, though it was bowed, his eyes shadowed by his hair.

"...There is. But..." His lips kept moving for a couple more words, but I didn't hear any of them.

"Shinya!"

We both jumped, and whipped our gazes around to see Takuya running across the street, looking all at once very angry, very happy, and very about to cry.

"Taku-!" Shinya barely got an opening to fight him off as Takuya, too overcome to notice anything else, pulled him into a tight hug, completely ignoring his younger brother's protests as he abjectly refused to let go.

When Takuya broke the hug, he gripped Shinya's shoulders at arm-length and his expression settled decisively on anger. "What did you think you were doing?" he barked, "_Especially_ after today!"

"I just needed to get away," Shinya said sulkily, sounding like he'd been caught eating cookies right before dinner rather than one who had been driven to running away from home.

"I was worried sick over you!" Takuya yelled, shaking him. Carefully, I placed a hand on his shoulder. Almost instantly his features relaxed and his hold on Shinya eased. "Sorry, Shinya; but I really was worried." He looked at me like he wanted to ask me something, but Shinya choosing that moment to walk away distracted him from voicing anything. "Wait," Takuya yelped, grasping his arm, "Home's that way."

Before Shinya looked at Takuya, he looked at me. I put my hands in my pockets and shrugged mutely at him. Now that Takuya was here, I honestly just wanted to go home. In the end, Shinya said nothing, but started leading the way to home, Takuya following just behind with a somewhat perplexed expression. He glanced back at me once, but I was already turning to read the bus schedule and check it against my phone (8:30 PM). When I looked back around, the two of them were already gone.

–

The sky was well past dark by the time I finally made it back home. I gazed at the lit windows on the bottom floor, wondering if at this point it was even worth trying to get back into the house using the tree. Dad and Satomi almost certainly knew that I had snuck out. Taking a steeling breath, I walked to the front porch and opened the door.

As I had expected and dreaded, Dad was sitting in his favorite armchair, reading the evening paper, and his eyes darted right to me as I passed the threshold. "Where were you?" he asked sharply. I sighed inwardly and wished he couldn't have taken that tone with me, even if it was justified. Satomi was nowhere to be seen, I noticed. Maybe she had gone to bed early again.

"Out," I answered, knowing that of all nights I would never get away with vague answers tonight, but I didn't want to tell him more than I felt was necessary.

"Out, where?"

_Think, Kouji, think!_ "Uh... One of my friends got into a fight with their folks tonight, and they wanted someone to vent to. In person." That took care of the "why-didn't-you-just-talk-on-the-phone?" argument, I hoped. Dad folded his paper and dropped it on the floor to the side of his feet. I shifted on my feet, fighting every instinct to bolt for the hills.

"Kouji," he began, leaning forward with his hands clasped firmly between his knees, stoney blue eyes set on me, "I'm only going to say this once, so I want to make sure you understand me." When he didn't continue for a long moment, I offered a careful, slow nod. "I know that it's summer, that it's light late, and you want to go out with your friends and have fun. However," he straightened and his gaze hardened further, "given the circumstances, I think we need to establish some new rules."

I felt the blood drain out of my face and opened my mouth to protest.

"Kouji, I don't do this to be mean to you. I'm doing this for your own good." I sank into the closest chair and stared at my lap. "You can't be out this late; Satomi and I had no idea where you were or when you had left, and we were worried sick about you." I gripped my hair – that was a phrase I'd been hearing too much of lately. "If you're going somewhere, you need to tell one of us, and you need to check in every time you go somewhere else. I've been lenient on that lately because I thought you had recovered from this destructive behavior, but I can't trust you now." Suddenly my eyes felt flooded – that one _hurt._ "You will be home every night by dinner, and you may not go out again after that, unless it is for a required school activity. Understand?" After a long pause, I slowly nodded. "Good. You may go." He took up his newspaper again, but I didn't move at first. Then, silently and unobtrusively as I could, I went back upstairs to my room, closed my window, and fell back on my bed. I didn't even feel my head hitting the pillow.

A dreamless sleep later, I woke up to my alarm blaring at me to get ready for school. Rolling over upon slamming it off, I realized I was still in my clothes that I'd worn the previous day and that I'd somehow wound up sleeping on my cell phone. Stretching out the resultant knot, I pulled out my phone and checked it, and I saw that I had a text from Takuya. After reading it I pitched the phone to the floor as hard as I could and it didn't break and I buried my face in my hands because it _just wasn't fair_; Takuya's message rattling in my head:

_Sorry I didn't say it earlier, but thanks for helping with Shinya, man. You're the best!

* * *

_**...**

**My heart breaks a little every time I read this chapter...**

**Remember I mentioned I was having problems with this chapter? Turns out half of those were solved once I actually made the parent act like a parent. Who'd've thought?**

**Notice my txtspeek fail. I'm one of those weirdos who uses complete words when she texts, so... I figured if I didn't use any vowels, it'd be convincing...**

**Still striving to keep everyone reasonably in character. Am I doing okay?  
**

**There's a lot happening here that I could talk about. But I won't. Cos it's currently 10:20 PM and college students kind of need their sleep. So...**

**I'll try not to be so horrendously slow with the next update... Don't hold your breath, though...**

**Well, as you know, reviews are always appreciated. :)**


	8. A False Projection of Normalcy

**Oh, look; chapter names! :D**

**So, this is what I've been fussing over in regards to this story since October. I'm still not really satisfied with it. It feels a bit out of place to me, but then again, that was sort of my original intention with it, so... In any case, I'm tired of looking at it and being in a standstill about it, so here you are.**

**Digimon. Not mine. Not even in my dreams.**

* * *

_'I can't trust you now.'_

I flexed my wrist again and the high sting ran up to my shoulder. I dropped my arm and closed my eyes tightly, as if maybe when I opened them again, I would wake up from this nightmare I'd let myself be pulled into. But I still saw myself in the bathroom mirror, haunted gaze and all, and cursed the day.

Dad came up the stairs to let me know breakfast was ready; I grunted and he went back down. I had nothing to say to him. Dad's always been protective of me, but I thought this was going too far. Did he really think forcing me to do _anything_ against my own will would be conducive to "helping" me?

"Kouichi," I muttered, "I don't know if you can hear me, but... I need you here. I know you're mad at me, and I'm sorry. Please..." I waited, but nothing came out of the silence. No copy of myself standing by my reflection. No low scoff at how far I had fallen, even. Just dim silence buzzing in my ears. My eyes fell closed again and I heaved a sigh. It just figured it would go like this. I turned the light off and went back into my room; put my cell phone in my pocket and pulled a box from under my bed. A moment of rummaging turned up a brace from when I'd mildly sprained my wrist in my first year of middle school, before I'd started cutting the first time. I'd used it once or twice, without Dad or Satomi's knowledge, to cover fresh cuts until they healed enough to not be shocking. Now I needed it again...

Despite my growth spurts over the past two years, the brace still fit me well enough. I tucked it into my school bag to put on once I was out the door, then walked downstairs. There was already a plate set up for me, and Dad sat at his usual spot on what must have been his second cup of coffee, newspaper held up in front of him. I uttered a sound in my throat to announce my presence. His eyes flickered up to me, then back to the article he'd been in the middle of. Dropping my bag on the floor, I slid otherwise noiselessly onto my chair and picked up the chopsticks. I didn't feel hungry. I ate a few bites to be polite. The tension in the room made me feel about to be sick.

I halted at the door on my way out, hand hovering over the doorknob. Out the corner of my eye I spotted Dad, sitting in the same place at the table, though his mug was almost empty now. My fingertips tapped the knob nervously, and I swallowed. "See you tonight," I muttered, not sure if it had been loud enough to carry into the dining area.

He raised his eyes to me again and said, "Be careful." I grit my teeth and opened the door. Once I was well away from sight of the house, I took out the brace and wrapped it over the cast of gauze bandages, firmly adjusting the straps to keep it in place. It had to work; my school summer uniform would never cover it; I could not rely on long-sleeved shirts. Even at the early hour, it was already hot, just degrees shy of becoming unbearable.

_If all else fails, a good old-fashioned death glare might scare them off..._

Shrugging my book bag more securely on my shoulder, I picked up the pace and kept from locking eyes with too many people. I wanted them to see just a kid who had made a wrong move in P.E., not anybody who had something to hide.

I arrived at school, exchanged my street shoes for the school shoes at my locker in silence, gathered what I needed for the first part of the day, then tread to my homeroom and sat down as unobtrusively as possible. A couple of girls glanced at me and started whispering among themselves, but I paid no mind to them. They always seemed to start whenever I walked in the room, anyway. Sensei must have gone to run an errand elsewhere before school started; he'd unlocked the door, but he was nowhere to be seen. I took an assignment out of my bag and checked over it, more for a need of something to do than out of worry for what grade I might get on it.

Other students filtered in, along with Sensei, and soon the first bell of the day rang through the building. At roll call, Sensei's eyes lingered in concern on my wrist brace – What happened this time? – but he tactfully said nothing about it and the rest of the class more or less followed his suit. Lunchtime arrived without so much as a passing comment about it. So far, so good.

With a tray of school lunch in hand, I walked to the back corner of the room and picked at it in the much the same manner as I had breakfast. I should have been starving by now. Instead I felt comforted by the thought that maybe letting myself waste away into nothing, wouldn't be so bad.

After lunch, I went back to my locker to switch out materials for the next set of classes.

"What happened to your arm?"

I jumped my gaze from the combination lock to Yuhei's face and mentally fumbled for the answer. "I sprained it, Saturday. After school." He tilted his head to one side, looking doubtful. Yuhei was one of the few who had explicitly known about my cutting – he'd actually seen the marks while they were fresh. I'd never really liked him that much. Ignoring him, I returned my attentions to the lock, popping it open and placing the morning's notes inside after gathering up the afternoon supplies in my bag.

"You don't act like you sprained it," he sing-songed, and I shut the locker door with a bang.

"Don't you have a class to get to, or something?" I said, employing the death glare. Yuhei backed off a step or two, holding his hands up defensively.

"Just saying; you're a bad liar." And with that he turned on his heel and all but strutted away. I fumed for a moment. "I won't tell anyone."

"The hell you won't," I muttered, placing a hand over my eyes and wishing I could be anywhere but school.

"Besides," his voice suddenly came again, startlingly close. Again I jumped, fixing him with another glare as he gazed bird-like at me. "It's not like no one else is thinking the same thing."

"Well, you're wrong; they're wrong. It was a mild sprain on Saturday. It still twinges a bit, so this," I held up my wrist, "is just to give a little more stability. Satisfied?" This time I walked away, to simply get away rather than mock him back. Yuhei proceeded to follow me.

"That was more convincing; you're getting better." I rolled my eyes and didn't bother to answer. Where did he get the _nerve,_ today of all days? Most everyone who ever bothered me in the first year or two of middle school, had learned not to.

"Okay," I huffed as I abruptly stopped at the doorway to my classroom, to which Yuhei had decided to dog my heels, "what do you want?"

"Hm?" He had to the gall to look mildly confused, as if he hadn't been spending the last five minutes deliberately pissing me off.

"Don't 'hm' me," I growled, dropping my voice to avoid drawing Sensei's attention, "Why the hell are you bothering me about this?"

He shrugged. "It's fun."

_No fighting allowed on school grounds... Or at least not in front of Sensei._

Instead I jammed my fist in my pocket and glared at him yet again. I never quite knew what to do about people like this in a situation where resorting to violence was inadvisable. Fed up, I jabbed my thumb at the classroom beyond. "I have to go to math right now. Go to your own classroom." Yuhei _smirked,_ and then he walked briskly away. After throwing one last glare at the back of his head, I carefully placed a neutral expression on my face before stepping into the classroom. Once at my desk, I lowered my head and fumed. Yuhei was the _last_ person I wanted to think (_know_) that I'd started cutting again. He was one of those people who would not let an issue die for as long as he could push someone's buttons over it. Apparently I always gave the "best" reactions, because I've never seen him pester anyone else at school like he pesters me. Stupid kid. I tried to put the incident out of my mind, but now I was worried that, as I walked through the halls after school got out, a wall of kids would be waiting to jeer at me. A ridiculous fear that would never happen, really, but it wasn't a nice thought to end the day with. All I wanted was to get back to life as normal, and the rest of the world seemed bound and determined not to let me have an easy start.

After closing my locker for the last time that day, I leaned heavily against it and rubbed my eyes wearily. _How can things get worse?_

"You okay, Kouji?"

Female. Not Yuhei. Thank God.

She was a year below me; I could never seem to remember her name, but she always treated me kindly. I huffed out a sigh, wishing people could just leave me alone like they used to.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I muttered. She cocked her head and leaned forward, scrutinizing me with her large, dark eyes. But she didn't say anything. "Sorry, I'm just tired. Rough night."

"Oh," she intoned, nodding understandingly, "Me, too. We don't have A/C at my house, so it gets really hot upstairs." She shrugged one shoulder and grinned half-heartedly. "Makes it hard to sleep." I could only offer a shrug in response. Then I hoisted my bag over my shoulder and walked away, offering a noncommittal wave of my arm as a farewell. But after a while, I noticed the sounds of light feet trailing behind me. After a dozen or so yards of this I halted. A small startled noise on her part indicated she only just avoided walking into me. I was getting _very_ tired of people following me around. I turned to see her contemplating the hang of her uniform shirt, a blush lightly coloring her cheeks.

"Uh..."

She looked up, turning redder. "Sorry! I-! Um..." Her head ducked back down and her focus now turned to her shoes.

"No, it's nothing you did, I... What are you doing, exactly?"

With a squeak she straightened again, literally appearing like she physically could not answer. Maybe I should have offered a polite smile, but I was too caught off-guard by her behavior to think correctly.

"Yukumi!" Someone shouted, and she whipped around emitting a high-pitched "Yes?"

_Yukumi_... Okay, that sounded right. She looked back at me, flushed an even deeper red, then hastily waved and ran off faster than I think was necessary.

You're never conscious of your own blinking until something totally inexplicable happens. Then you realize it's literally the only reaction you can give.

Shaking it off, I hitched my bag up again and started for home. No one else bothered me for the rest of the way. Worked just fine for me...

* * *

**Meh. I originally intended for this to be longer, but once I realized I would not be going anywhere further with this chapter, I decided that made a fine break.**

**Wanted to bring Kouji out of the bubble he's been in for the past several chapters and shove him back into the world. But the world's not necessarily a friendly place when you're going through what he's going through...**

**I don't know if Yuhei and/or Yukumi will make any future appearances. I'm leaving a lot of things open to future ideas, depending on where the story decides to go; while I have some scenes along the main plot that I definitely want to include, there are subplot ideas that I'm still trying to figure out what to do with...**

**Enough writer-talk. Thank you for being patient with me through all this waiting. And to the newcomers: Welcome to the readership! You get a great big ":'D" from me for liking this story enough to make it this far.**

**I know they're in short supply, but reviews are very much appreciated. :)**

**Cheers.**


	9. Out From Your Cave

**Hey. Hey guys. Did you see me, guys? Did you see what I did? I FREAKIN' UPDATED. Omigaw.**

**In seriousness, though, it's about time. Took me long enough, eh? Not like anyone's been expressly clamoring for more, but you never know. I never check my traffic here, so I honestly don't know. |D  
**

**Should note, now that I'm back: The following (and when I say the following, I mean like, from this point through to the end) is what happens when I let my Insane Writer Brain do whatever the heck it wants rather than try to rein it in all the time with imploring protests of "But I'll get flames if I let you do _that!"_ Cos that's what I tried to do for the past year and obviously nothing happened. So about a month ago, I said, "Fine, IWB, do what you want, but don't say I didn't warn you."  
**

**And then I added forty(!) pages in two weeks. Not even kidding. And it's not stopping. I can't make promises, but my goal is to have a final finished all done draft by the end of my summer break - which gives me 'til the last weekend of August. And so far it looks like I'll make it. There's a moral in here somewhere, I just know it...  
**

**So there's gonna be stuff from here on out that I swore at the beginning would never happen. Oops. All I can ask is that you keep an open mind - believe me, I've had to (keep an open mind to my own mind?...). You've stuck with me this far, after all. And trust me, it's allllll according to plan...  
**

**Anyway, off we go...**

* * *

The skin stretched, itched. I relaxed my wrist and the urge to rub, scratch at it, ebbed away. The scabs, no longer a fresh garnet but rather faded to brown, only looked like I could pull them away without starting the bleeding afresh. But I knew from experience that razor cuts did not work that way. For the sake of preventing further scarring, it was better to tough it out. Let them chafe off on their own.

I kept the gauze wrapping on out of this necessity. I didn't need it for appearance's sake anymore; it didn't look that bad now that it had been several days.

I learned harder against the side of my bed, carefully rubbing the bandaging around my wrist. In the heat and humidity, the temptation edged upon unbearable.

My phone buzzed. I looked at it sidelong; a text from Izumi. Not picking it up, I pressed the button to receive it, and deciphered it as best I could without tilting my head. She wanted to know if I was available that Sunday. Three days; I lifted up the edge of the wrapping to peek at the scabs again. Maybe it would be okay by then. But I didn't send my answer right then. I needed to know for sure.

–

The sunset glaring through my window onto my desk made it difficult for me to read the textbook, but I wanted to have the blinds up. I liked being able to see outside every time I glanced up, even if I couldn't actually see much from my bedroom window. If I didn't have my desk right against the wall, I could have perched on the windowsill, leaned against the glass. If I pressed close enough, I could just watch the world go by down my street.

I used to do that all the time when I was younger. I can only just fit on the sill, now.

Another text from Izumi. I had gotten one from Tomoki and one from Junpei, but only Izumi wanted to know my weekend plans. Nothing from Takuya yet. I hadn't heard from Takuya at all since right after our search for Shinya. I didn't know what to make of it.

I hadn't replied to any of the texts. I don't know why. I pretended I was too bogged down with homework to respond myself into extended conversations. In actuality, I could barely concentrate on the text in front of me, and the sunlight washing out the characters on the page had nothing to do with it.

It had been four days. Four days, and the wait to see Kouichi again was driving me crazy. I fisted my hand, relaxed it, fisted it again and held it. Ground my teeth. Did all the little things I did whenever I thought of Kouichi and mentally ran down the list of what it did to me not to see him, to know that he was still mad at me. I thought I'd proven by now that I was able to handle it this time; that I really was better now, that I'd gotten it out of my system.

As long as I didn't think about what had happened, I was fine. But then of course the problem was that I thought about it _all the time._ And it only got worse as time went on. The first day, I was okay; Kouichi was mad at me, probably would stay angry for a while, so in the meantime there was no use sulking. And then the next day, when evening rolled around and I still hadn't seen or heard from him, I'd started to get anxious. The third day had been torture. I'd wanted nothing more than to scream.

Today, I just felt... there. And that was it. Apathy is not a state of existence that I recommend to anyone, but I couldn't pull myself out of it into anything else. Apathy, scattered here and there with periods of frantic what-ifs.

For the seventh time that day, a little envelope flickered onto my cell phone's display. Takuya.

_"Hey, Kouji, it's Izumi. Is your phone working? Are you free Sunday or what?"_

Persistent as ever. But why didn't Takuya himself ask for her? Perturbed, I picked up the phone anyway, making sure to send the text to _Izumi's_ phone.

_"I don't know yet. What's up?"_

That was the closest to the truth – _"I've done something stupid and I don't want you to judge me for it, so I need to wait and see how obvious it will be when we next see each other before I give you a proper answer."_ – that I could go.

_"I was just wondering if you wanted to meet up for coffee or something? We didn't really get to talk last time. :)"_

…Was that it?

Another envelope flicked onto the screen before I could respond. _"It's not a big deal if you can't make it, though. :)"_

...Huh.

I pushed the phone away. The old paranoia – I wasn't ready for anyone else to force any confession out of me.

Three days.

–

I lightly scratched the ends away. Fresh, pink skin underneath. I accidentally pulled the scab off a deeper wound and swore at the beads of blood.

_"Do you know if you can get out on Sunday yet? Or did you just forget to reply?"_

Two days.

–

_"Kouji, I don't mean to nag, but I need to know about Sunday ASAP."_

That evening, I sat with my phone before me on my desk. I read Izumi's most recent message over and over again. I tapped my finger on my desk, just watching the screen before it faded to black. I pressed a button to wake it up again. I continued in this manner for several minutes. Finally, I let out a breath and slapped the phone closed. Moved to the other side of the room. Set my alarm clock for the next morning.

My phone chirped and the screen lit up. I glanced at it. A second trill indicated an additional message. Begrudgingly, I strode back to my desk and pressed the 'receive' button.

_"Are you ignoring me?..."_

Guilt oozed coldly down my neck. I thought to reply then, but I read the second message first.

_"It's okay if you can't make it tomorrow. Really. But I do need an expressed yes/no."_

The phone quickly found its way into my hands and I tapped out a fast reply.

_"I'm not ignoring you. Been busy. Sorry. Can't make it."_ Double-checking how well my wrist was healing would only have made the feelings of guilt worse; I cast around for a plausible, easy-to-believe lie. For lack of on-the-spot creativity, I went with _"Family stuff." _I stared guiltily at the screen for a few moments after I sent the text. Then I came to my senses and reached it toward the desk.

Almost before I put the phone down it buzzed again. _"Oh, that's too bad. I understand, though. Maybe next weekend? :)"_

I hesitated, my thumbs hovering. _"I'll try. Thanks."_

_"No problem! :)"_

–

The next week dashed by, and I couldn't use the same excuse twice.

I tapped my foot. It looked less suspicious than tugging my sleeves like I wanted to. By now, the marks were barely noticeable. I still wore long sleeves, though. Miraculously, it was cool enough that I wouldn't be massively uncomfortable.

With everything that had happened, I was grateful for this one small stroke of luck.

I tried not to think too long about what I would do when my luck ran out. Mostly because I felt certain I would not need to worry about such things again.

Izumi had said to meet at one o'clock. I'd arrived fifteen minutes early due to the bus schedule. Now I was waiting on a bench outside the chosen café, scanning up and down the street every so often for her approach. It had been ten minutes. I was hoping she'd show up soon...

Suddenly I spotted her approaching from the direction of the bus stop, and I found myself nervously tugging my sleeve down. But then I would have had to lie about why I had to wear it, and Izumi had always been good at catching lies. I rose from the bench to meet her.

"Hey, Kouji," she said, smiling.

"Hey." I jerked my thumb at the door. "You wanna go in?" She nodded. "I can pay for your drink."

"That's fine. This isn't a date," she replied, raising an amused eyebrow at me. I pushed my hands in my pockets and shrugged. It was always polite to at least offer, right?

"Right. Okay." I shrugged again, sheepish. She laughed and I smiled.

Once we had our drinks, Izumi led the way back outside, to the same bench I had been perched on before she arrived. We sat in silence for a few moments, sipping at the iced beverages, watching passersby.

"I wouldn't have pegged you as a cappuccino man," Izumi said after a moment. I balked and looked at my drink, wondering which part of it screamed "Not Kouji." "Not with all that whipped cream, at least."

I nearly laughed. "You'd be surprised." Izumi was not the first to have ever suggested I didn't like sweets. On the contrary. Maybe I didn't enjoy them as often or as much as other people, but by no means did I dislike them. At that her eyes turned far away, her smile now contemplative. After swallowing another mouthful I regarded her carefully. "What is it?"

She shrugged, the smile faltering. "I guess I don't really know you anymore, do I?"

"I haven't changed that much, have I?"

"We haven't seen much of each other for three years, Kouji." She let the thought hang in the air. I stirred my drink around with the straw, at a loss for anything to say. I had no excuse for that, really. And I knew she understood why that happened, even though it hadn't been the right decision for me to make.

"That's why we're here, remember?" I said, trying to lighten the sudden melancholy that had fallen over us.

"Yeah." The true smile returned. "That's right. So," she adjusted position, settling more comfortably on the bench, angled towards me. "What have you been up to?"

"Why do I have to go first?" I didn't exactly _object _to the notion, but...

She shrugged, grinning around her straw. I leaned against the back of the bench, setting my drink down next to me. Where to start...

"I remember what you told Takuya and me. But we have all the time in the world here."

I pulled out my cell phone and checked the clock. "Not really..." Dad wanted me back by dinner, which gave us about two hours.

Izumi shrugged, waving it away. "You know what I mean."

Silence again, while I thought. "Well... School. I think my dad wants me to start looking for a job, but Satomi thinks I don't need to yet, so there's no pressure there." I let out something that might have been a laugh. "She kind of wears the pants at home, but don't let Dad hear you say it."

_"Have_ you applied for work anywhere?"

"No. I only heard them talking about it a couple months ago; they didn't know I was listening. Dad never explicitly said anything to me. And recently I've had other things going on, so..."

"Yeah; I've been there for that part," Izumi put in, eyes softening sympathetically.

I fidgeted with my sleeve again for a couple seconds before I realized what I was doing. Izumi didn't seem to have noticed. I picked up my drink again, and took a few more sips. "What about you? Are you job-hunting?"

"Oh, no," Izumi said without even thinking about it, shaking her head firmly. "I'm so busy with Student Council duties as it is; I don't think I could fit a part-time job into my schedule at all." She paused, reconsidering. "I want to get one, though. My mother doesn't want to buy me things as much anymore."

"And for college?" I prodded. She giggled guiltily.

"Yes, and to save for college." She frowned. "That's not for a long time, though, so I'm not worried." The drink level in her cup dropped another centimeter. Her phone chirped and she glanced at it. Sighing, she shoved it deeper into her pocket. She forced a smile at me, clearly exasperated with whoever had sent her the text. "Always somebody wanting something," she murmured, and it sounded like something she'd only heard someone else say.

"Everything all right?"

She waved it off. "Nothing, nothing. Nothing important, anyway."

Bull; everything was always important to Izumi. I raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. She looked sheepish; I said nothing about it. And then something occurred to me.

"Izumi," I said, "You're Catholic, right?"

She started. I plowed on, "Or a Christian of some kind, right?"

After a moment of fumbling, Izumi stuttered out, "I was raised Roman Catholic, yes; lots of Italians are. Where's this coming from?"

And then I hesitated. I wasn't sure how to phrase it. None of the gang had ever known me to hold any sort of belief about an afterlife – indeed, I hadn't started believing in one until after I had _been_ there – and so I suddenly found myself on very unstable ground. I swirled my drink around. "What do you believe about... spirits, and heaven, and stuff like that?" _And redemption_.

Izumi set her drink on her lap, turning her gaze skyward in thought. "Faith in God, doing good works, repenting for sins, and not committing any mortal ones – that all gets you into heaven. It's not that simple; you have to act with the love of God working through you."

"...And spirits?"

"Like, souls? I don't think they go anywhere once they've been judged after death... I'm not very devout; I'm just going by what I remember from Sunday school as a child. My parents made me do everything. But after we moved here, they kept it up and I sort of didn't. Why the curiosity?"

I shrugged. "Just that, I guess; I was curious."

"Thinking of converting? Would you even be converting _from_ anything?" A pause. "I always sort of thought Buddhism and Shinto were more like lifestyles than religions, exactly. Compared to Catholicism, anyway. Sorry, I'm being narrow-minded, aren't I?"

"It's fine, and I'm not thinking of converting or anything like that," I deflected, "I was just thinking about it the other day. Dad didn't have time to instill any system of belief in me, and I wouldn't pay any attention to Satomi even if _she_ tried, so I've more or less had to find my own way..."

Izumi frowned a little. "That's a shame... I mean, to not have something to lean on, with the life you've had..." She readjusted her position. "I mean, like I said, I'm not devout; I don't pray anymore, when my parents aren't around to force me at Christmas dinner or something. But I still have Bible verses memorized, and sometimes just reciting them to myself helps me calm down when things get crazy."

Suddenly I felt very exposed. I sought refuge in my drink, which was running out disappointingly fast. Izumi snapped to. "That was a clever way to get the focus off yourself. C'mon, Kouji. You've done nothing but school and wonder if maybe you should get a job? For the past three years?"

"Can _you_ remember everything you've done?" I challenged. Her brow furrowed in thought for a few seconds, then her face smoothed again.

"Fair enough," she conceded, "I don't know; the Digital World was so exciting, I needed to sort of _jump_ right back into life after we got back. It also..." and she looked crushingly sad, "It was the only thing I could do to cope."

And I knew she could only be talking about Kouichi. Reflecting on it, I remembered they had grown very fond of each other in the Digital World, she extending her "protective big sister" role in the group to cover him unconditionally. I had nearly forgotten the relationships Kouichi had managed to build with everyone else while was with us; it was jarring to be reminded in such a poignant way that he'd had a chance to affect all of us, not just me. When had I become so selfish about him?

We both contemplated our drinks. "I guess," she started quietly, "we do all have our different grieving mechanisms." Lost for reply, I just rolled the cup between my palms, listening to the slight popping of the plastic. Izumi mused further, "Junpei got really quiet, too. We almost never saw him for the first couple of months, even though he always answered our emails and all. But Takuya and I tried to never stop moving."

"I became a hermit," I cut in, trying again to lighten the mood with my word choice. Emitting an amused huff, Izumi's lips did twitch upward at the corner for half a second.

"Well, yeah; you kinda did." For some reason, though, her agreement only made me feel worse. "None of us blames you, though. I hope you know that."

"As long as you accept that I basically lived like a hermit, too." She raised an eyebrow at me, looking uncertain. "Not doing much of anything, and all."

"Oh; sure." She smiled sincerely. And suddenly I felt a lot better.

Groups of people drifted past, fresh off the bus. A cluster of girls strutted past, and at least one craned her head around to look at us – _me_, Izumi insisted later. Once they were out of earshot, Izumi put on a mischievous grin. "So tell me, Kouji; did this lot of nothing that you did ever include a girlfriend?"

Immediately my face erupted into a scorching blush. "What?"

Later Izumi would tell me my reaction alone was worth asking. She burst out laughing. "Just curious; someone as good-looking as you...!" I shook my head firmly, ducking it over my straw so no one else walking by would see me red with something _not_ sunburn. "_Really_?" she gasped. When I said nothing on the topic, she turned the subject back onto herself. "Takuya and I didn't start dating until a year ago. But he started asking me out about a year before I finally agreed."

"What stopped you, if you don't mind me asking?" I still wouldn't look up from my lap.

"The blush is going down," she said as an aside. "I guess I didn't want to start dating so young."

"Hold on!" I interjected, "You promised both Takuya and I a date if we defeated Cherubimon, remember? What happened to that?" _I never got that date, either. Not that I was in a state to..._

"I was just joining in the fun. You two needed something better than cummerbunds from Bokomon to come back to, right?" Oh, right. I must have repressed that detail... "Reality sort of smacked me across the face once I was back home, though, and I'd thought everyone had forgotten about it anyway."She looked askance at me. My blush returned with a vengeance.

"I suppose now's as good a time as any to say I always sort of had a crush on you," I mumbled. "But I think you knew all along. Is that why you offered the date to both of us?"

Now Izumi was a deep strawberry red; turnabout was indeed fair play. "I sort of had a crush on you, too." At my surprised expression she elaborated. "You were always really nice to me, even if you never said a word about it."

"You have my dad to thank for that," I still couldn't look up at her. "I used to get into fights a lot when I was little; short temper. Got it from him. Dad figured out really fast he couldn't stop me, so he told me if I was going to punch someone, I needed to at least make sure it wasn't a girl. He taught me I needed to treat girls the way I would treat a lily." That earned a smile from Izumi. "You know, before I got on the train at Shibuya, I was actually on my way to buy flowers for my stepmother. It was her and Dad's anniversary."

"Really?" I nodded. "That's so sweet. Did you..." she cut herself off. She knew I never got those flowers in the end. I never, never did. Lost for words, she reached to gently squeeze my hand. Her palm was fridged from her drink. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to keep bringing the subject back to-"

"It's fine." She shouldn't tread on eggshells around me; that wasn't her way, and it just didn't feel right.

"Any girls at school that interest you?" She proffered meekly, abruptly bringing the conversation back around. I shrugged. I cast my memories back to Yukumi, that other day. Now and then that girl would just happen to be in the same area of the building as me at certain times of the day. Places I hadn't spotted her before. Like she was trying to memorize my schedule. She had only occasionally accompanied me on the walk to the gate, trying to make small talk. I told Izumi about her. A small light bounced around in her eyes. "She seems like a nice girl," was her official judgment. I shrugged one shoulder. I wasn't very interested in dating, to be honest; too much else going on that pressed more insistently at my attentions. "Are you going to do anything?"

"Well..." No? I hadn't actually thought about it that much, because for some reason it had never occurred to me that Yukumi might actually be after a date rather than just friendship.

Izumi's cloying gaze switched to one of exasperation, and she lightly smacked my knee. "For goodness' sake, Kouji, put the poor girl out of her misery and ask her if she'd like to get a crêpe with you after school or something." I balked. "I've been a fourteen-year-old girl pining after the cutest third-year boy. Thank God for Takuya, or I'd still be waiting anxiously for Masashi Yamazaki to finally give me that ribbon."

I raised an eyebrow, expression of disbelief. She tried to shrug it away, but she was clearly embarrassed with herself. "Somewhere around July, you kind of have to accept that he's never gonna get you that White Day gift." Her lips puckered to the side in a sour expression. Just as quickly her mood popped to cheerful again. "But I say again: thank God for Takuya."

I smiled into the last of my coffee, and slurped it all up in one draw. Izumi appeared to be following suit now that I finally could look up without displaying a scarlet complexion. I checked the time on my phone. "I should probably start heading home," I murmured regretfully. Though I had partially dreaded the meeting beforehand, I was now disappointed that it had to be cut off so soon. Izumi and I used to banter like this all the time, and I hadn't realized how much I missed it. Pulling out her cell phone, Izumi rose from the bench. She tossed her empty cup into a nearby trashcan and then set to tapping out a reply to that text she had gotten at the beginning. I was tempted to ask who it was, as she looked irritated again just at the sight of it, but I thought better of it instantly. It really was none of my business.

Message sent, she turned to face me. I stood up and pitched my cup into the trashcan, on top of hers. "I need to get going, too. I wish we could have talked longer, though."

I felt the smallest smile for half a second. "We can always meet up again," I said. And truly, I wouldn't have minded.

Her smile was bigger, less ephemeral. "Sure. I'll let you know if you let me know," she said with a conspiratorial wink. I just nodded. Together we walked to the bus stop. Mine arrived first. As I boarded I heard her order, "Ask that girl out!" _Did she have to say that in front of everyone..._ I waved, trying not to give any indication that I heard her. When she laughed at the heat crawling up my face again, I scowled at her and retreated to an empty seat in the back. I checked my phone again. Text.

"_I mean it! I expect to hear about flying sparks in the next few days – or a crash-and-burn! ;)_"

I scoffed. Izumi. I allowed another smile, a genuinely fond one. She hadn't changed a bit.

* * *

**The Pacific Northwesterner has them get coffee. Go figure.  
**

**Kouji you blush and smile too much stop it.  
**

**So erm yeah, characterization. I figure I'm okay as long as I don't blunder into the horrifically OOC, but... By all (polite) means call me on it if I do.  
**

**Also, uh, I've noticed via this and later chapters (also before; really the story in general) that I'm largely operating on my own head-canon here (haven't rewatched the show in a while; should). So... I'll either fix things later accordingly, or I won't. c:  
**

**You'd think after two years of attending a private Catholic university, I would know a thing or two about Catholicism, at least by osmosis. Goes to show what they say about leading a horse to water... On that note, I don't know very much about Shinto, either. Goodie that I can take refuge in the characters' probable mutual ignorance (to an extent)! |D **

**Research? What's that?  
**

**More to come, and fairly soon, at that! :)  
**


	10. Into the Sunlight

**Hey guys new chapter, like I said I would. Wut. Also hey new summary. I wasn't sure the one it's had for three years really fit anymore - not sure how well this one fits, either... So sorry to jar you with the change outta the blue, but you know us writers with our flights of fancy...**

**Sooooooo yes. Amendment to what I said in a prior author note: From here on out is what happens when I let the Insane Writer Brain go wild during the first pass - and then _I_ step back in with a red pen and go, "Yes, okay, no, okay, yeah, that's cute, ew, no way." The result may still have "Oops, that's not what I plotted at the start," but maybe characterization won't go soft for the sake of fancy. This is my hope. My readers decide what's what in the end product. :]**

* * *

Yukumi just happened to be standing outside the door when I left the school building the next day, after classes. She jumped in surprise at the sight of me, as she always did, eyes bright when she asked how I was. "Fine," I said semi-automatically. As she fell into step beside me I tried to reevaluate her out the corner of my eye without her noticing. I tried to figure out what a girl like her might see in me. And, okay, I tried to convince myself that maybe she would be worth a return effort. To avoid Izumi's nagging.

"What did you do yesterday?" she asked. I shrugged.

"I met up with a friend."

"Oh?"

"I haven't been able to talk with her much, lately." Her smile faltered a little. "She goes to a school on the other side of town, and she's really busy."

"I see," Yukumi murmured, face casting down. I scanned the path ahead, feeling like I should be doing _something_. Without any say on my part, my feet halted before a vending machine. Yukumi realized I'd stopped, and planted herself a couple paces ahead. I focused my attention on the drink selection. Shifting on my feet, I made a quick glance at her, watching me, and returned to examining the machine.

"Want something?" I offered to the air, ignoring the way my chest rang. Without looking I searched in my pocket for loose change. I usually carried an extra few hundred yen in my jacket... Before she answered I pulled out a five-hundred yen coin and pushed it into the coin slot. I deliberated for a second, shrugged, and went with apple-infused green tea. It clunked out. Yukumi wordlessly stepped forward after I collected the change. A moment later, she twisted the top off a bottle of Calpis, took a sip, and we continued on our way.

After that we walked in awkward silence. First hurdle cleared, I hoped. Though I don't know what sort of hurdle that might have been. I still had enough control over all my muscles that I felt quite steady, but Yukumi for her part seemed to be consciously trying to walk naturally. Her heels hit the pavement just a little too hard. "You alright?"

"I'm okay," she piped, but she took her next sip of Calpis too quickly and spent the next several seconds coughing and clearing her throat. She looked very pink. I was ready to exact revenge against Izumi for all but forcing me into this. This couldn't have been the kinder option...

The bus stop was vacant. I checked the time and sat on the bench to wait. My apple-green tea was almost halfway gone. Yukumi joined a conspicuous distance away, busying herself with smoothing her skirt. "Yukumi?" She squeaked in reply. I wearily rubbed the bridge of my nose, trying to mask it as an itch. When she gazed expectantly at me I figured her squeak had been a stand-in for "Yes." "What do you usually do in the evenings? After homework and everything?"

She told me in nervous fragments about playing with her new puppy, Caramel, taking the bus to play badminton at the park with her brother, maybe she might make _keshigomu hanko_ as spontaneous gifts. "How about you?" Still blushing, though not as vividly. I shrugged. Usually after I did homework I just holed up in my room, nowadays. I didn't tell her that.

"I don't have much time for it anymore, but I used to practice guitar." I still don't know why I had to tell her that.

Her eyes went perfectly round. "I didn't know you play guitar!"

"Most people don't." It was lost beneath her exclamation of "That's so cool! Do you sing, too?" I blinked, startled. Embarrassed, she continued in a much quieter tone, "Did you ever write your own music?"

I adjusted into a more comfortable position on the bench. "I tried, a couple times," I thought aloud, remembering my attempts at original melodies. "I don't remember that any of them were any good."

"Did you keep anything?" I looked at her. She shrugged. "One of my cousins wanted to be a singer, and she wrote a lot of really deep, emotional stuff a couple years ago. She ended up throwing it all away, and now she really wishes she hadn't." Yukumi shrugged again. "Mi-chan said artists should never throw away anything they make, no matter how terrible it is." I cast back in my memories for what I might have done with those compositions. I had a vague recollection of sticking them all in a folder that I placed in a box that might have gone under my bed or in the garage... But that had been a couple years ago; I didn't remember much from that time.

"I'm not sure what might have happened to it. I guess I can look. Maybe my step-mother knows." Mention of my step-mother seemed to surprise Yukumi, but she said nothing about it. Most people immediately leaped into questions or lapsed into embarrassed silence, like a deep, secret shame had just been exposed and they were never meant to know. No; after the initial pause, Yukumi swept back into enthusiasm over my past creative endeavors. I took note; I decided I liked that.

"Well, if you do ever dig them up, do you think you'd be able to still play them?"

"Maybe, if I practiced for a couple hours."

Her mouth worked, but no sound came out. And then she blushed the deepest yet. I chanced a wild guess. "You're not going to ask if I can play them for you, are you?" She looked right up at me, the biggest grin imaginable stretching across her face. Her eyes looked even brighter.

"I'd like that very much!" she said just under control.

"Uh, that's-" I started to protest. Her smile twitched. I closed my mouth on the rest. Yukumi didn't stop gazing at me, doubt steadily clouding the open eagerness on her face. "Okay," I sighed out, closing my eyes in lieu of slapping a palm to my forehead for what I'd just blundered into. "But don't count on it any time soon."

I felt the bench quiver and opened my eyes to see Yukumi beside herself with fan-ish excitement. Was it really that big a deal? Perplexed, I kept my mouth shut about it and focused on the bottle that gradually grew warmer in my hands.

"Kouji," she uttered softly after I spotted my bus pulling in, "if you don't find your music soon, do you think we could still..."

Oh, crap; what had I done. Didn't I offer to get a drink together? Wasn't that enough? Dammit, Izumi...

"Uh..." A card was pressed into my hand.

"This... this has my number on it. Could you send me a text message with a good time? Or not, I mean, that's okay, too... Or you can wait until you find the music. Or not, it's okay, that... Well, I guess we'll see each other at school, anyway. Sorry, that was all really forward of me, wasn't it?" I prodded her shoulder to turn off her babbling. Bad idea; fire raced up her complexion again. I turned the card over in my hands.

_What have I gotten myself into?_

The bus doors opened and people started boarding. I took a breath. "I'll let you know."

The poor girl looked ready to die of joy. I was really glad she didn't. Then I decided I was never going to forgive Izumi for this.

–

By the end of the week, I decided that I maybe could forgive Izumi. Eventually.

Yukumi and I didn't do much. We got drinks from the vending machine on the way to the bus stop, a couple more times. A few days into the week, she worked up the courage to sit with me for lunch in the faraway corner of the cafeteria that no one else liked. She worked out quickly that I didn't like to talk much. So she patiently lingered, offering a thought once in a while, and learning not to be affronted if I didn't always respond. I should have gotten irritated with her – and part of me did want to push her out of my life as quickly as she'd slipped in. But for some reason, I never did. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. For some reason, I just couldn't manage to get annoyed enough with her.

That was my impression by the end of the week, anyway. Yukumi mellowed out a lot as she learned how to navigate herself around me, for which I honestly was grateful. I did not want her bouncing like a purse-dog every time I spoke to her. It made me nervous.

For the time being, I played things very cautiously. In my mind, I knew Izumi expected us to get all couple-y. But I had watched too many of my classmates pair up and almost instantly split up again for too long to entertain any small notion that this one might last just because it was _mine_.

–

A Cheshire Cat grin split across Izumi's face when I gave her a very pointed glare on approach. "You never texted me," she chided lightly. I batted her tutting hand away and dove into the details, because there would be no evading her questions. Ultimately she got to tease me about the way I just couldn't be surly about the whole thing. "See, I told you," she said, as of course she must, "This might be good for you."

"Yeah, yeah," I waved her off, but I secretly agreed. "If it lasts."

Izumi cocked her head, calculating eyebrow raised. "She's been eying you for, what, two months? Longer? And look at you; you're _smitten!"_

"Am not!"

Izumi let my protest speak for itself. I fumed very strongly at her. "Kouji," all teasing lilts dropped from her manner and she squeezed my shoulder, "I'm happy for you. I mean it."

I couldn't bring myself to argue.

–

"_Thought you'd want an update on Shinya. I haven't noticed any new cuts, and we've actually been talking a bit. I guess he's getting better. :]_"

I sighed at my phone. I almost didn't have the heart to tell him not necessarily. But the message did kind of kill my moment. Yukumi and I had missed a few buses back home talking about... something. I don't even remember. But now whatever lingering good feelings had vaporized, and it kind of ticked me off.

_"Maybe."_ I thought for a few seconds about how to phrase my warning; I wanted Takuya to exercise caution, not be paranoid and smothering. That wouldn't be good for any of us. "_Not out of the woods yet, though. Keep an eye on him._"

No reply came. Takuya had definitely had his cell phone out, so he must have read it, at least. That was all I needed from him.

Still, I couldn't help feeling a little good at the thought that Shinya might actually really be getting better, that maybe Takuya and I'd had an impact on him. Leaning back comfortably in my desk chair at the thought, I felt like there was this little glowing ball of light swelling up inside my chest. How fitting. But it was made of moods. Part of it felt like pride, at the success, but there was also something sour mixed in that I didn't want to mull over much at all.

Jealousy. I hadn't seen Kouichi in over a month, not since he berated me for cutting again and vanished before I could explain myself fully. In the back of my mind I knew he was hanging around anyway, checking in without showing himself. I could sense him. That should have been comforting, but it wasn't. A part of me was angry that he didn't _understand_ that self-mutilation isn't a just-snap-your-fingers-and-fix-yourself thing. But then again, he simply didn't have the right experiences behind him to be able to relate. It wasn't his fault...

"I guess you saw all that," I murmured, running a thumb over the faded cuts. Some of the pink-white lines were still there – new scars... "I guess I did right by Shinya. You were right..." About what, didn't immediately come to me as words. Something had gone unsaid in a conversation with him prior to the intervention, that I hadn't called him on or agreed with at the time. But whatever it was, something told me Kouichi had been right.

I tried to bring that little shining light back again. It felt peculiar, after so long, even though it twisted around that jealousy. It made me feel _lonely..._ "Kouichi," I murmured, now that I'd caught myself in an introspective vein, "I know you've been watching me, and you've heard me apologize for what I did a thousand times. And you've _seen_ that I'm not going to... do it again... Remember the last thing you forgave me for? Wasn't that so much bigger than this?"

I felt a wrench in my heart that had nothing to do with my own emotions. Kouichi remembered. When we'd first met, first tried to get along, he'd been so resentful of me and the better life I'd gotten to have. He tried to hide it, of course, but I felt it; his pain was my pain, his anger my anger. The disparity between our lives, because of the parent we each happened to live with, was the cruelest injustice of his life. But he'd forgiven me, so soon after we met. He'd forgiven me and then he'd started to love me, so unconditionally. And with that assurance that he'd never turn his back on me... I'd started to love him unconditionally as well.

I tugged my sleeve further down my wrist and sighed. "I know I broke a promise to you, Kouichi. And you know I'm sorry. This is killing me. Please, just... Please."

Without a sound he appeared out the corner of my eye, gaze downcast and radiating guilt. _I'm sorry, Kouji,_ he whispered. _I shouldn't have acted like that. But I've never been that angry before, and it scared me._ After a pause he looked up with a small, placating smile. _I forgive you._ He took my wrist in his hands and examined it, turning it over to carefully run his fingertips over the scars. _This time,_ he added with a smirk. It's hard not to laugh when Kouichi smirks. On his face, I don't think it looks nearly as threatening as it does on mine. Don't ask me why when we have the same face.

He does look damn scary when he's enraged, though...

Without another word Kouichi dropped my hand in favor of perching on the bed. _And I did see that,_ he added, switching the topic so smoothly I barely noticed at first. He smiled, and I got the feeling from the way his eyes lit up that he had that same little glowing ball in his chest I did, unadulterated. _Good job._

I shrugged, "Takuya's done most of it. I just gave him a place to start."

_Don't discount yourself like that, Kouji_, he replied without missing a beat, still holding that smile though the shine of his eyes dimmed. _I don't think you give yourself nearly enough credit anymore._

I didn't know what to say to that, but I guess he was right, again. Kouichi had grown pretty damn insightful, with all that time to sit and think. The next time I looked back at him he was tossing a tennis ball between his hands, just as he always did when he visited.

"Maybe I don't," I said at last under my breath. I spun idly in my chair a few times, to alleviate the silence

_Penny for your thoughts?_ Kouichi asked lightly. I shrugged.

"...I'm not sure what I should do next." I looked briefly at my wrist, remembering how blood had saturated it just a month ago. It felt so _wrong_ to know that I'd done that to myself just weeks ago. It felt even worse to know that I had fallen back into it in a moment of weakness after _two years_, when I used to do it all the time...

Kouichi was staring placidly at me when I finally turned to him again. The tennis ball rested comfortably against the arch of his foot, and he leaned his elbows on his knees. _You want to know what I think?_ he asked me, just a bit of a teasing lilt in his voice. I raised an eyebrow at him, inviting him to either go on or keep quiet, it honestly could have gone either way. He grinned and leaned back again. _I think you need to stop worrying._

...

Throwing back with a laugh at my bemused expression, he continued, _Think about it. What else can you do right now? Things are okay with Takuya – he'll ask for your help if he needs it again. You're all caught up with your schoolwork. You've got a new girlfriend-_

"She's not my girlfriend," I interjected.

Kouichi's smile grew wider. I suspect it was related to the heat crawling over my face. _Whatever you say, Otouto-chan._

I threw a pen at him; it passed right through. Unfazed, Kouichi carried on. _You've hardly gone out of the house for anything but school. I don't care what curfew Dad put on you; __**I**__ think you need to get out of the house for a few hours and just, I don't know..._ he leaned back a little more, seeing something in the plain white ceiling that I'd never discern. _Try to enjoy life_, he finished, a blissful smile on his face as he closed his eyes and breathed some relaxing scent that couldn't have been my stuffy bedroom. Lost for a reply, I merely looked at the floor.

Enjoying life the way Kouichi seemed to be referring to didn't seem feasible. Between that curfew (Kouichi never had to live with Dad; he definitely was not the authority on how Dad would take me blatantly violating his stipulations), and the other tensions with Dad and Satomi, and not to mention whether Shinya was truly better or just going through an eye of the storm... Even my relationship with Yukumi had its stresses.

I didn't want to fret. I didn't want to catch myself up in worries again after a week of just _being_. Having something (seeing Yukumi) to look forward to every day. I wasn't sure how I felt about her, yet. I knew I liked her – more than I had liked any other girl. (Seeing as I had barely paid any attention to any girls before her save Izumi, this wasn't an impressive declaration.) After a moment's careful consideration, I decided that was all I needed to know.

My phone finally buzzed again, but it wasn't from Takuya. Kouichi lowered his chin down from the ceiling so he could watch me.

"_My parents want you to come over for dinner. Saturday night work for you? :)_"

I still hadn't told Dad and Satomi about Yukumi. I supposed this was my cue. No reservations, now that it had been over two weeks...

"_Sounds good. I'll ask my parents._" My ears burned; Kouichi was watching, and the elation in his eyes told me that somehow he _knew_. I sent the text and put my phone on my desk.

_Well done,_ Kouichi intoned with a devilish smirk, and then he vanished. I scowled at where he had been sitting just a second ago. But it was no good glaring at empty air if it didn't at least glare back.

The room still felt stuffy.

I opened my window.

Just a crack.

* * *

**So we're at the point where I want to move the plot along already, and while I could just say "One month later..." or something, that simply would not work for the story I'm trying to tell. So unfortunately we get filler. It won't last much longer, but unfortunately it's also gonna be kinda predictable...  
**

******I like having Kouji be a n00b about dating. And having him grouse about it because he won't admit he enjoys it. Why am I even allowing this at all you guys are gonna hate this story now oh well.  
**

**Calpis is, so I hear, a fermented milk beverage-type thing. Kinda like kefir, I guess? I should have tried some while I was in Japan. ;_;  
**

**I'm pretty sure someone in our group got green tea from a vending machine which was infused with apple... Don't quite remember. |D  
**

**I made _keshigomu hanko_ with one of my host families - eraser stamps. Basically, you draw/transfer a design onto a rubber eraser and then you carve it out with cutting tools. Quite fun, but it also makes a mess. XD  
**

**Thanks for reading. Next update soon!  
**


	11. Storm Warning

**Uhhhh so where did summer go? o.o;;**

**Guys, I move back into the dorms on Sunday, and classes start Tuesday. And I'm a biology major so ALL the reading and labs. And if I manage to finagle into a part-time job, well... Between that and other things I'll be doing to keep myself sane blah blah blah excuses and apologies. I'll do my best to keep updating, though. I'm at the point that there's little plotting left to do – it's just getting everything actually _written_ in a perfectly adequate manner. If nothing else, there will be NaNoWriMo – while I'm not going to be writing a novel (again ;_;) it's still an excuse to get some writing at all done. But I'm getting ahead of myself, here.  
**

* * *

"So your dad and stepmom are okay with you coming over for dinner?"

"Yeah, believe it or not."

I heard Satomi mention to Dad when she thought I was out of earshot that she'd actually suspected it – something about knowing the look of "first love" when she saw it. Now if _that _wasn't a reason for the ground to swallow me up... I did not say a word of that to Yukumi. I knelt down to lace up my school shoes. Yukumi waited patiently at my side, though she fidgeted a little with her backpack strap.

"So, do you want to just come home with me after school? Or do they want you home for a bit?"

"I said I would find out what was okay with your parents." I straightened and closed the locker on my street shoes. "So coming home with you is okay, then?"

She nodded emphatically. "Mm-hmm." We started walking. "Mom was wondering what you like, just so she has an idea of what to make." I delivered a short list.

"But there's no pressure to keep to the list. I like lots of things."

Yukumi smiled knowingly. "If there's one thing you need to remember about my Mom, it's that she'll make your favorite food and _lots_ of it. Maybe you should skip lunch on Saturday."

"Hmm." We climbed the stairs to the second level, where we would have to part ways. "See you at lunch?"

"Of course," she beamed, gave my hand a quick squeeze, and continued down the hall. I turned to the next flight of stairs – to see Yuhei at the top. _Great_.

He let me walk right on by, though he did not budge from his sentry position at the landing; rather, he turned on the spot to watch me go. I did not like the look on his face. Something about the way his eyes darted between me and the foot of the stairs. I resisted any urge for nervous movement. Yuhei did not say a word, but I felt his eyes pinned to my back the whole way to my classroom.

I chanced a glance back the way I came when I reached the door. The hall was empty. Grimacing, I decided for the moment it was damn lucky for him that he didn't follow me. The last thing he ought to want was a punch in the mouth; the last thing _I_ needed was to do such a thing at school.

Never mind. Class. Yukumi at lunch. My mood lifted a little. Those were the things that mattered, after all.

–

Lunch passed uneasily. Yukumi spoke one-liners from her train of thought, as was her way, but she appeared worried. She wouldn't reveal anything when I asked, so I dropped the subject. But I noticed Yuhei watching us both walk by after Yukumi and I had finished eating. I made a point to ignore him. Part of me wanted to demand that if the rat had something to say, then he should say it.

The part that won the battle insisted on maintaining my composure as long as Yukumi was around. I wanted to _keep _her around, and that necessitated keeping my fight to myself. I scowled more deeply, but at least I listened.

–

It was a relief to see only Yukumi at the end of the day – and looking in considerably better spirits. She asked me what I was smiling about, and I waved it off. "It's a nice day," I said offhand. She nodded in agreement and tentatively wrapped her fingers around mine. I looked down at them, and her grip loosened nervously. Deciding holding hands felt kind of nice, I took a firmer hold to reassure her.

"So when can I meet your dad and stepmom, then? After Mom and Dad approve of you, I mean."

Caught slightly off-guard though not surprised (Dad and Satomi had asked about meeting Yukumi in turn), I scanned the sky, calling up my mental calendar. I didn't have anything big happening, and to my knowledge neither did anyone else in the household. "Anytime, I guess. Maybe next Saturday? Same deal; you'd just be coming home with me." Inexplicably, she blushed. She was a such a naif, really; on anyone else it would have been so _annoying_... But because it was _Yukumi_, if pressed I would admit, okay, I found it a little endearing. A spring joined her for a few steps and she swung our arms between us. With no other plausible reason for it, I assumed it had to do directly with what I had just said. I thought about making a comment, but her face was still quite pink; maybe it was better not to draw attention to it.

We had become so used to our joint after-school routine that before either of us knew it we'd entered the café near our high school. "I really want to get a parfait," Yukumi mused, "but they're huge..."

I knew she was fishing for me to offer to share it with her; Yukumi was a bit of a sucker for cheesy romance-movie things like that. In the end she left me to find a table; a few minutes later she came to the booth with a fruit parfait and two spoons. As a favor to her I took at least one spoonful for each she had. About halfway down the glass she stopped, insisting she'd had enough even though I'd shared enough meals with her to know she had the metabolism of a humming bird and could completely afford the rest of it – she could have eaten the whole thing, even. "It's fine. I think you need it more; you're so boney..." I instantly looked down at my hands. Somehow, it only then occurred to me that I hadn't eaten much at all for the past month. Even the skin stretching across my knuckles seemed like it didn't properly exist. I balked; I hadn't_ seen_ myself much lately. Hadn't wanted to, really... I wondered why no one else had called me on it earlier. I then figured that wearing longer layers for the cooling weather had something to do with it. I flexed my fingers, watching tendons and bones ripple underneath the pale skin. When I looked back up to Yukumi her eyes were pained.

Under that pleading gaze I knew too well from other people – _'At least humor me, eat something, so I'll feel better.'_ – I took up my spoon again and picked at what was left of the parfait. A grateful smile passed over her features for one second before she covered it with an innocent "Shall we?" as she rose from her seat.

–

I dug through my box of things I kept from when I was thirteen – including my old wrist brace. I felt a nice pull of satisfaction to drop it back in, where it belonged. I didn't need it. What I did need, however, were several sheets of handwritten tabs. I found old school certificates and antidepressant prescriptions and an empty box that once had a stash of dried potato snacks, now held a stash of half-emptied prescription bottles. I really hated taking those pills; they made me throw up half the time, and the other half I... felt weird around guys. That's all I'm saying.

Finally I uncovered the sheets of tabs marked out in scuffed pencil, almost at the bottom of the box. I rifled through them; some pages had titles... Wow. One had attempts at lyrics, but I couldn't remember in the moment what sort of melody they were meant to follow.

Goal obtained, I replaced the lid and shoved the box back under my bed. I went out to the garage to retrieve my guitar; stowed next to it was the battery-operated tuner – out of battery power. I replaced the batteries in the kitchen, and then took instrument and gadget back upstairs. Satomi smiled lightly at me when I walked by her, in the living area. She had always liked to hear me practicing in my room, even though I refused to play anything just for her. I adjusted my grip on the case.

Tuning alone nearly made me give up on the endeavor. The A-string never liked to hold pitch for more than two minutes under any circumstances. In the end I got it as close as I could and decided I wouldn't worry about tuning it again until I needed to play for an audience – whenever that would be. I had only gotten the guitar out again because of Yukumi's enthusiasm three weeks ago, but I wasn't exactly leaping to perform.

_Been a while since I've seen that up here._

"Here to make me feel self-conscious when I'm out of practice as it is?" I murmured, working my fingers into a C-chord.

_Hi to you, too._

I heard him juggling the tennis ball. "You wouldn't happen to know what was eating Yukumi at lunch today, would you?"

_Incorporeal, not psychic,_ Kouichi snarked. I rolled my eyes.

"You seem to read _my_ mind well enough."

He let out one bark of laughter. _You're my **twin**._ As if that explained it perfectly. I shrugged, no longer interested. _You **have** gotten awfully thin, though..._

"Is everyone my mother today?"

He went silent and still.

"Sorry..."

_It's okay. I know you didn't mean it like that._

I strummed a few different chords, practicing the transitions. "I never meant to share any of my songs with anyone. Is this a good idea?" I thought aloud; of course I was definitely seeking Kouichi's input, but I didn't want to seem that unsure of myself. A nonchalant shrug was the only answer I got.

_I'm not the one risking total embarrassment, here._

I frowned at him. "Aren't you on my side?"

_Of course._

"Hmph." Maybe I should just ignore him until he started offering _constructive_ input...

The only sounds in the next stretch of silence between us, came out of my guitar. The fingerings weren't coming back to me as easily as I thought they would. Which was fine; there was no rush. It was just a little frustrating.

_I think that's enough practice._

Wordlessly I put the guitar back in its case.

_You don't want to burn out your enthusiasm in one day. It already took you forever just to tune the darn thing._

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." I looked up at him. He rested his chin in his palm, leaning his elbow on his knee. Lost in thought.

_It **is** a nice day,_ he mused, _Maybe you should go outside for a while. Walk around the neighborhood a little bit._

I looked out the window. The sky was very clear, and the temperature had been comfortable when I'd made it home. Again, I shrugged. "Maybe tomorrow, if it's nice. I don't feel like going anywhere tonight."

_Kouji, you know you're not going to go out tomorrow even if it is nice. Just walk to the corner and back, or something. Quit being such a hermit._

For that he earned a sour look. He laughed.

–

I wondered after the fact if it had been so wise to mention offhand to Yukumi that I'd tracked down the "music" I wrote two years ago. The way her eyes lit up and she looked ready to raise the ceiling in her excitement made it worth it in the moment; later, anxiety crept in. Now, I was committed. Now, I needed to practice. Having only picked up my guitar again yesterday, I wasn't sure if my enthusiasm for the endeavor would last until Saturday – the day she suggested I bring my guitar with me to school so we'd have a means to kill time until dinner with her parents. The weather was supposed to be fairly nice, and she wanted to have lunch in the park before heading to her house. I had agreed to it automatically because I just couldn't keep up with her energy in the mornings, and my mind was already racing with the what-if's and the should-I's. When she left toward her class, I took a few seconds to breathe. Was that level of wide-eyed devotion normal in a middle school girl? It was certainly more than I felt was appropriate. In the end, I shrugged. In the end, I didn't mind it all that much; it was nice to have someone focus all their attention on me whom I could actually _touch_...

Yuhei waited for me at the head of the stairs again. I frowned at him. His grin widened. I scoffed and rolled my eyes, passing him right on by. "You know, she's the cutest second-year girl," he mentioned after I left the steps. I didn't rise to the bait; just kept walking. "Everyone else is jealous." Of her? Of me? I didn't care. But my gait faltered. He noticed. "Her friends all stop to watch you go by," he continued, his voice growing closer. Stopping, I glared at him. A bark of laughter echoed in the spacious hall. "And don't you even pretend you don't notice."

"Yuhei," I muttered with forced civility, "What are you getting at." In the back of my mind, I had a feeling I already knew.

He pretended to examine his thumbnail. "What's in it for _you_?" After a few seconds of my baffled silence, he sighed. "Come on; between men, what kind of benefit do you get from dating Yukumi-chan?"

"Don't call her that," I snapped. Why did he even _care?_ He raised his eyebrows.

"Whoa; possessive, much?" He dropped his arms, thrusting his hands into his pockets. His manner became much more casual. "You know, I dated Yukumi-chan-" I nearly bared my teeth at him and he acknowledged that with a thoughtful tilt of his head, "-last year."

"Funny, she never talks about you," I intoned dryly. I lost interest and continued on my way. Affronted, Yuhei dared to catch up.

"Listen—"

"Don't care to."

"You know why everyone's jealous, don't you?" He spoke in a low voice. "Cos it just _burns_ them to think of it. But I know something they don't know." His smug grin etched into his face. "You'll never have her the way I did." Something about the way he said it raised the hair on my neck. "I gave her just a little taste, before we broke up. And she'll never admit it, but she's an addict as much as the rest of us."

"What the hell are you saying," I muttered, clenching my fists in my jacket pockets. Yuhei bobbed closer and leaned in, almost whispering.

"Yukumi-chan may be your first, but you certainly are far down the line from _hers-_"

I blinked, and the knuckles of my left hand stung like I'd struck something hard. Yuhei sat on the ground with blood leaking from his nose. The hall was dead silent; I hadn't perceived the pre-class murmur, but now I noticed its absence all too well. I shivered. _Don't need this don't need this don't need this please don't let Dad find out but he will ohhhh **shit**..._

"Don't you _ever_ talk about her like that. Don't even _think_ that way," I growled, straightening out of the fighting stance I'd fallen into from habit. Knuckles throbbing now. Yuhei wiped his nose across his hand. For his part, he looked shocked that I had actually hit him on school grounds.

"Or what? You'll just hit me again? Might as well; you can't dig yourself any deeper now your sensei knows about it."

A chill rushed across my shoulders, but I didn't budge until I heard Sensei summon me. Then I turned, anger deflating out of me to make room for defeat. "Sensei..." I acknowledged quietly; I had no excuse.

"Tanaka-san, go to the nurse and get that taken care of." A lot more than that first trickle of blood had started gushing down his face. Girls recoiled as he passed on his way to the school nurse's office. He muttered something about 'getting his nose broken by some pretty-boy' and my hackles rose again – I knew he had said that just to make my position even worse in Sensei's eyes.

"I didn't break it," I muttered bitterly. _I would have heard it, felt it crunch under my fist. He would be screaming. **That's what I was aiming for...**_

"Come with me, Minamoto-san," was all Sensei said. I followed him to the school principal's office, and there I waited. I told Inukai-sensei the simple truth – that I was defending Yukumi's honor. Wasn't that what the hero always did in those Western fairy tales? Although I didn't mention that last part – the last thing I needed to be labeled by anyone was "knight in shining armor."

"If Tanaka-san is harassing you, you need to report it; vigilantism does not work in academic settings. Or any setting. It disrupts order."

I nodded, knowing that I was more the villain than the hero according to rules of conduct. Clocking someone in the nose – no matter how they deserved it – was hardly appropriate retaliation to mere verbal ribbing. But I tried one last appeal: "Wouldn't you have done the same thing?"

Here Inukai-sensei paused – for that telling half-second – and then he suppressed a sigh. "The rules are very clear, Minamoto-san. And the policy as much so. I will have to call your parents and alert them to this incident." His worrying brow echoed my heart's freefall into my stomach. _Don't need this don't need this I'm **fucked.**_

"Inukai-sensei, please..." I didn't mean to beg; I shouldn't tell him that I was already grounded, that I had so much else going on, that the worst thing that could happen- but his reaching hand had already picked up the phone and he spoke to his secretary in words I didn't hear because my mind was whirling in panic. He motioned for me to remain seated. I had to hear him relay my actions (_my acts of delinquency_) to my father – at _work_...! After he finished, Inukai-sensei laced his fingers together on his desk.

"Your father says to wait for him to pick you up from school today."

I kept waiting for the floor to open up, to plummet chair and all into the center of the earth where I would never have to show my face to anyone again.

"You are dismissed to your class."

"Thank you, Inukai-sensei," I murmured with all due decorum, and I rose stiffly from my chair, felt the way cold sweat had set in the creases of my uniform. His sympathetic eyes landed on my back.

"Minamoto-san," I halted, twisting just a little to see him out the corner of my eye. "If it helps, I did the same thing, when I was about your age. And ten years later, that young lady became my wife." That made me hesitate longer at the door. I turned fully to face him. There was no sign of mockery or irony anywhere on him. Lost for any words, I nodded, and then I left, feeling that tiny bit lighter.

I tried to dwell on that sentiment, and not what awaited me at the end of classes.

On my way past the nurse's office, I caught a glimpse of Yuhei's blood-stained face through the horizontal blinds. A grim satisfaction pulsed through my veins, dying when his eyes flicked and locked on mine. 'Vengeance' spelled itself out in that brief eye contact. I turned my gaze away and continued on. I had accomplished what I needed to. And Dad would see reason, once I got a chance to explain things my way. There was nothing more to think about.

The story apparently hadn't reached Yukumi by the time she joined me for lunch. She sat next to me, smiling as purely as she always did. "Daddy told me he's looking forward to dinner on Saturday."

"That makes me nervous," I intoned, not sure which emotion to display for her. I was secretly pleased that my first thrown punch in years happened to place me in Inukai-sensei's good graces, but at the same time I worried that even given my reasoning, Yukumi and her family would not approve. Already I wondered if Yukumi should be dating someone as withdrawn and serious as me. She was only fourteen; shouldn't she be having _fun_ with dating while there was no pressure for anything at all...?

Then again, I mused when she scooted a little closer before opening her bentou, Yukumi herself hadn't complained at all about my mannerisms. She never had anything but kind words to say. "Don't be," she said, "Daddy's a really nice man; he only looks a little intimidating. You'll see what I mean." She grinned wider as if remembering something funny. "I get the feeling dads are supposed to be a bit scary." I had once told her in passing that I used to be frightened of my father when I was a child. "I wonder if that's to scare intruding boys away from their daughters." She winked at my indignation.

"What if they don't have a daughter? Just a son?"

Yukumi took a nibble off her onigiri, lost in thought. "Hmm... I don't know. Here; want a sky bean?"

The rest of our lunchtime was punctuated with conversation in this way. Now and then I secretively glanced around for Yuhei, but I never saw him. I wondered what that meant – I definitely had _not_ broken his nose.

At the end of the day, Yuhei was waiting for me, Yukumi in tow, when I left the building. Him, and some of his friends. I suppressed a groan. Yukumi squeezed my fingers tentatively when she noticed my posture shift. "Act natural," I whispered, uselessly. I knew they were going to stop us. I stubbornly kept my eyes forward. As long as there was a possibility that my father could see me, I was not about to raise another fist. And in all likelihood this _could_ become a fistfight, even a melee if his mates joined in.

"Too bad Inukai-sensei plays favorites," Yuhei projected conversationally, his voice affected by the coagulated blood still in his nose. Yukumi stumbled a little beside me; I slowed while she regained her footing, checking her reaction. Confusion. "Didn't your boyfriend tell you, Yukumi?"

"Kouji?" she said softly, searching me, still confused. I gave the subtlest shake of the head I could manage. I kept walking.

"He _could_ _have_ broken my nose." It sounded like Yuhei regretted that I _hadn't_. Like he'd missed his shot at having a stronger case against me. _What_ was his problem?!

"Still could," I replied coolly, not turning. And I panicked when I thought I felt Yukumi trying to withdraw her hand. "I'd rather not, though; there's a lady present."

"Kouji..."

Just as quietly, I answered "What?" She worried at her lip, not entirely able to look at me. I grimaced; her image of me just became that much more flawed. On the one hand, that was reality; on the other... "I'm sorry; I didn't want you to find out about it like this."

"What happened?"

"I'll tell you later. I don't want you to hear it from Yuhei. Come on." And she followed, readjusting her hand to latch onto mine more tightly.

"Okay; I'm trusting you on this."

"Minamoto, I'm talking to you!"

"Give it a rest, Yuhei!" I shouted back, finally turning to see him, his friends beginning to look uncertain at his conduct. "You were out of line and you know it. Let us be."

I didn't realize anything was wrong until Yukumi squeaked and wrenched her fingers away. Immediately after, a hard arm wrapped under my chin and jerked me back. I caught a fleeting glimpse of his shin and aimed a kick. Whoever it was, howled and released me in the same instant I saw stars. Coughing away the surprise, I straightened and shook my sight back into focus. My lip throbbed. Me against four, if all of them pitched in – not fair, and completely not convenient. I was aware of Yukumi standing to the side, utterly shocked at the turn of events. I'd already shifted into my fighting stance on instinct. "Kouji!" Yukumi yelped, "Don't!"

"Don't want to," I assured her, backing away, regularly glancing back at her to make sure none of them tried anything; they were all taking their time, though not sweetly. As I neared her, I reached out a hand. Her fingertips grazed it. "Go on." And I turned to walk forward, but I kept looking back over my shoulder. They were in no hurry; that worried me. If I could just get to Dad's car... After I reached the gates, though, they fell back, and I relaxed. Maybe my quick retaliation had given them second thoughts.

"Kouji, you're bleeding."

The inside of my lip felt raw; I'd been tasting copper but thinking nothing of it. I put my hand to my mouth and it came away smeared with blood. Whoever grabbed me snuck in a hit somehow. "Don't tell your dad about this. I already have to tell mine."

"You can clean up before he gets home-"

"That's his car, there."

Her face fell. "Oh." She attempted a farewell smile, but it came out as a grimace. "Good luck, I guess," she said meekly. I shrugged, not sure what I could say. Giving my hand a final squeeze, she turned on her way to the nearest bus stop. I looked back; Yuhei and his friends were far from the gate. I hoped they wouldn't get the bright idea to follow Yukumi where I couldn't keep an eye on her, but for all his perversion this morning, I had the feeling that wasn't Yuhei's style. In vain I attempted not to wonder if that might indeed be the method of his friends... The one certainly didn't mind attacking _me_ while my back was turned.

I heard the passenger side door unlock for me when I approached it. I opened it and settled into the seat. Dad started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. With a cold pang I realized he had to be _pissed_. There were very few things that could drag him out of the office, and a single punch to one boy's face couldn't be one of them.

I expected a volcanic explosion, but Dad only sat stone-faced, guiding the car through the narrow streets to the freeway. Should I launch into a defense of my own behavior? Should I wait for him to say something? Why had he come to take me home when he knew I would be there when he got home anyway because that was my curfew, and I knew _damn_ well not to break his curfew?

We had stopped at a traffic light for several seconds – no excuse of distracting scenery going by – when I inhaled to take a chance. Dad interrupted me.

"Kouji, I'm disappointed in you."

I gaped. "But-"

"You _know_ better than that. I _know_ I raised you better than that."

"_You _said not to hit girls; you didn't say any-"

"You are not a _child_ anymore, Kouji; you were too young to understand why you shouldn't hit anyone _at all_. Now you're old enough you should know better ways to deal with people when you get angry." His lips tightened and my spirits sank rapidly. I had hoped... I knew he was going to be mad, but...

"He was insulting Yukumi," I said quietly. Dad sighed, and I hoped he was seeing reason.

"I understand your motivations, Kouji."

_...but..._

"But," (I winced) "That still doesn't excuse your behavior. You understand this goes on your school record, now, don't you?" I wanted to say I didn't care, so long as someone would just _admit_ out loud, so I could hear, that I was in the right! But I couldn't. So all I would get was his _understanding_, but not his approval. I grit my teeth and fisted my hands in my lap. Wanted nothing more than to get out of this car. Dad sighed, running a hand through his hair. For two seconds, he looked old. Then it vanished. "I'm wondering now if I should even let you have dinner with her parents. If you still can't control yourself now..."

My blood ran cold when I realized what he was implying. "I would _never_ hurt her!"

"You also said you would never pick fights-"

"Yuhei-"

"You let him provoke you. You said you would never cut again, too. Kouji, you've been breaking a lot of promises, and I really don't like where I see you going."

The car fell silent with the weight of his words. Even the engine seemed muted. I only just managed to keep my breathing even. Kept clenching my fists tighter and tighter until I thought the skin taut over my knuckles would split open. I still tasted blood on my lip.

I didn't even look at Satomi when she greeted me. Dad followed me in the door, then went to speak to her in a low voice. Great; just great. My morale dropped with each step up the incline; it sat on the soles of my feet when I reached the landing. I closed my bedroom door quietly, then collapsed in a heap on the floor next to my bed. I drew my knees up, gripped my head in my hands, but I was losing control of my breath. Why was this bothering me so much? I'd let Dad down before, he'd said things like this to me before – what was so different now that I couldn't _stand_ to have his disapproval?

_Disappointment_. That was the word he'd used. 'Disapproval' was too mild for the way he'd turned his mouth down at me, watched me struggle not to lose my control in front of him with those impassive eyes that looked too much like Kouichi's- I shook my head hard enough to make myself dizzy. Anything but that, anything-

_Don't do it._

I looked up, somehow instantaneously calm. Kouichi stood before me, wide-eyed and hands suspended uncertainly in front of his chest, fingers flexing around each other in panic. _Don't do it,_ he repeated, kneeling down, reaching for me.

"Don't do what?" I asked mildly. His agitation increased, like he'd realized he may have just given me an idea that had not even crossed my mind. But I knew what he had been referring to all along. Already I was using my bed to push myself to my feet.

_Kouji, don't!_ Kouichi was practically in hysterics now, grabbing for my sleeve. His hands passed right through me. I smirked. I ignored the stab of pain in my heart at his hurt expression. _You know you'll regret it if you do._

"I have so many things I regret already," I replied in that light, mild voice, and I left my room behind. "What's one more?"

_Kouji, please, listen to me **now**!_ He was screaming loud enough for the whole neighborhood to hear. I paused at the landing; Dad and Satomi didn't seem to have heard. I leered at my brother's ghost.

"Or what?" I asked, biting on the words as they left. Kouichi looked down the stairs and paled, shuddering. Remembering how he died. I gripped the banisters and leaned forward, hanging off of them. Kouichi whined and hyperventilated, and I knew he was helpless to stop me if I let go. A dirty triumph surged through me; I _liked_ having this power over him. Being incorporeal wasn't such a hot setup after all, now was it? I pulled myself back upright on the landing and locked eyes with him. Tears flooded down his face.

_Please, Otouto-kun_, he gasped, _**Don't**._

For the second time that day, someone begged me not to do something; I scowled. I turned on my heel for the bathroom, recounting everything that had happened that day, the past month, my _entire life_. I sat on the rim of the tub with the razor – couldn't remember picking it up. I rolled up my sleeve to a looping soundtrack of Kouichi pleading at me. "Oh, Kouichi," I said, turning the razor to watch the light glint off the blade, "what are you going to do? It's not like you can stop me."

The blade sliced into my skin (_No!_), hot and sharp and the way I always remembered it. Light burst across my vision, wiping out everything into a white haze for barely a second. I blinked, ripped into shock. I still looked at my wrist. My stomach became ice. It looked like every scar I ever sustained had been opened up, uncountable hairlines of blood crisscrossing over the mangled skin. The razor clattered onto the floor. My hands shook. I looked up to the doorway; Kouichi was gone. I couldn't even feel his presence. He was just _gone_. My breath fell out in short, harsh bursts, and I stuck my fist in my mouth to quiet it. Still staring wide-eyed at my wrist, skin angry red and inflamed. And it _hurt_. Tears sprang to my eyes. Oh, God, it _stung_. I wanted to throw up. But I could barely move.

"_Kouichi, I'm so sorry._"

Nothing. I was alone. Completely.

* * *

**Oh, Kouji... I'm gonna need to feed you a whole plate of cookies when we're done here, aren't I?**

**Uh, moar filler, I guess? I mean, stuff happens, but not much... I wonder if I need to stop being my own worst critic...**

**Um, also, this is where things start to get a bit interesting, if you haven't picked up on that already. I hope I do right by this...**

**There are some things about this chapter that I'm not happy with, and you can prolly tell what they are, but I don't want to mess with it any more. It's not like I'm getting paid to do this, so I'm not going to let myself be too bothered.  
**

**Thank you for reading. The next chapter is in the queue, so perhaps I'll have that up in the next couple of days...  
**


	12. A Walk on the Domestic Side

**Akafsdf another update. Whaaaat.**

**I didn't want to have this _too_ closely on the heels of the last update, hence the delay.  
**

**Ummmm I hope I'm not repeating myself too much with the turn of events begun last chapter and concluded-ish in this chapter. You can decide. If you decide so, well, you get to dislike that about this fic, if you're so inclined.  
**

**Off we go, then.**

* * *

In a haze I rinsed away the blood. The cuts just kept on bleeding; crimson blood swirling down, down the drain. I shivered. Wrapped a cloth tightly around my wrist, twisting the ends and holding them.

I didn't know what to do.

I waited until the bleeding slowed and hairline scabs began to form, then I looked at it again in the light. Skin still pink and swollen from the trauma. I glared at the razor still on the floor. _How dare you-_

But it was my fault. _I_ did this to myself, and I _kept_ doing this to myself. And I was doomed to it forever...

A knock at the door. Blood rushed out of my face. "Kouji?"

_Oh shit oh shit oh shi-_

I pitched the blood-laden cloth into the hamper, scrambled to place the razor back in the toothbrush cup, and yanked my sleeve down. It scraped against the newly-built scabs and it stung, but I bit back the wincing. "Yeah?" I answered in a low voice, trying to mask the panic by painting it moody. The door was locked, but I didn't know yet if Dad wanted in, or me out.

"Can we talk?"

I thought for a moment. "Do I have a choice?" He kind of had me cornered. There was a silence during which I thought he might have left, but I never heard his footsteps leaving.

"I know what I taught you when you were a child. And it's good that you've kept to that." Something that might have been a resigned sigh. "If you hadn't defended Yukumi-chan, whatever was being said, I would have been far more disappointed." He was so solemn and quiet about it. Like it was hard for him to admit... "As it was... I was upset. I'm still upset, in fact. But it isn't fair to you if you don't know exactly what I'm upset about." A pause. "You violated school rules."

"That's true," I injected into the next pause. There was no arguing that.

"But, you still had the moral high ground. Most boys your age might not have done anything if the girl in question wasn't around, but you acted all the same. And... I'm proud of you for that."

Cold goosebumps ran down my arms. _Why... why couldn't you have told me that five minutes ago, you bastard, why-_ What should have been a swelling of pride in my chest was a cold leaden weight. My fists clenched, at the injustice of it. The cuts stung on my wrist again and my breath hitched. Dad didn't seem to hear. "Will you come out?" An undercurrent of apprehensiveness – it'd finally occurred to him what I might be doing locking myself in the bathroom. I pulled my sleeve as far down as it would go, yanked the other one down to make it look less suspicious, and pulled the door open. Dad leaned against the wall opposite. He offered a placating expression, blank but unaggressive. We were alike on one count, at least: we hated to admit when we made a wrong call. "You can have dinner with Yukumi-chan and her family on Saturday."

In spite of myself, I grinned, for just a microsecond. It might have been a trick of the light. Dad raised an eyebrow at my unguarded reaction, and his lip twitched. "Thank you," I murmured, suddenly self-conscious (well, more than I'd already been leaving my hiding place), and I shuffled down the hall back to my bedroom.

Satomi seemed particularly cheerful at dinner that night, paying more attention to Dad than was usual. I couldn't help wondering if she had something to do with him changing his mind. I couldn't help the pulse of annoyance at her meddling, but I might have thanked her, if we had that kind of rapport.

–

I wished Saturday hadn't come so quickly. Not for the dinner at Yukumi's – I hadn't looked forward to anything so much in a long time – but for the cuts on my wrist. For all their thinness, they weren't healing quite as fast as I would have liked. Many of the scabs had rubbed away already, leaving a street map of pink lines all over. I couldn't decide if that looked less or more incriminating than the network of scabbing.

But, there was little I could do about it. I dutifully wrapped the wrist brace around it, and bundled my guitar case off to school with me. Yukumi's eyes absolutely _sparkled_ at the sight of it, and a shot of anticipation jumped up my back. I suddenly felt certain I hadn't practiced nearly enough. "Are you sure you can play?" I lifted my wrist and flexed my fingers demonstratively for her. She beamed. "I can't wait," she was saying as we walked through the building. I didn't see Yuhei; I hadn't seen him the past two days. Perhaps he had learned a lesson not to mess with me; that was the comforting version.

The school day passed by in a blur. Before I knew it Yukumi and I were walking to the park under bright autumn sunlight, guitar in tow. She chattered on about how much she loved the changing colors of the leaves and how the weather was just right, idly swinging our hands between us. Once we chose a bench in the park, she skipped off to the nearby crêpe vender while I set up and tuned. Why did I choose _now_ to have reservations about playing somewhere so public? But I had already committed to it. And it wasn't like I would be playing for the whole park to hear; just Yukumi, and she would be sitting right next to me. No volume needed.

She came back with two matcha-anko crêpes, carefully setting mine on a napkin. "For later, if you want it," she assured me. But I picked it up and the small plastic spoon and dug in. She raised her eyebrows at me, then smiled and returned her focus to her own crêpe.

"Thank you," I remembered to say after a few bites. I pulled out my wallet to pay her back, but she waved it off.

"It's fine; they weren't expensive."

"No, I want to-"

"Kouji, really, it's fine." I hesitated, a hundred-yen coin pinched between my fingers. At her unwavering look I dropped it back into the coin pouch.

"Thank you," I repeated, feeling sheepish. I finished the crêpe in silence. "So," I said quietly, taking my guitar back out of the case again, and pulling out (rewritten) sheets of tabs, "I guess... I'll start with this one..." The one that happened to be on top. The notes came out very, very quiet at first, as I found the rhythm and the tune, gradually growing louder at Yukumi's encouraging beam. I tried not to let her know whenever I messed up...

Then Yukumi had the gall to open up my guitar case and set it at my feet, and I knew I was in for it. She smiled widely when I became aware of the very young eyes staring at me, the girls my age walking by who tried to act like they weren't lingering. When the first coin dropped into the case I tried not to have a heart attack, tried not to acknowledge it beyond what it was, just keep playing. But I did interrupt the rhythm only long enough to give a quick "thanks" before continuing as normal. After the song ended, a few more small coins clinked in to join the first. I bowed my head gratefully. After a token death glare at Yukumi (she only laughed at me), I shuffled through the papers and started plunking out the first notes of something I'd written in full (though it was only about a minute long) a few weeks before the Digital World. I had revisited it a few times over the years to make changes, but overall the idea was the same.

At the time the song had been to vent my anger at being so alone all the time, intended to be played loud and harsh, but I played it quiet and sad. Yukumi said that it gave her chills. I didn't play that song again. I moved on to songs I'd written within the past two years, all random melodies that had just popped into my head. Somewhere along the line I had arranged them all into a medley that lasted about two and a half minutes.

"What was that one?" Yukumi asked as I decided to take a break then to peruse my music and count the respectable amount of change that had found its way to my guitar case. Those melodies, all put together, sounded so peaceful and calm, and yet with a detectable happy energy. Nothing that I'd been feeling for the past four years could have generated that. The thought entered my mind the instant Yukumi asked that those tunes might have been Kouichi trying to cheer me up. I couldn't tell her that, though... A dead brother in a broken family wasn't something I could just bring up in the park. And honestly, I didn't like to think about Kouichi much at the moment. So, I shrugged.

"It just sort of came to me. Over time." The way she tilted her head and half-frowned suggested she didn't believe that was all, but she inquired no further.

"What are you going to play next?" she asked, reaching for the stack.

"Um," I murmured, twiddling my fingers, stalling for time, "I'm not sure..." But at least she seemed to be enjoying herself. That was what mattered. It made me sort of glad I'd gone along with it.

"How about this one?" She squinted at my writing. "Is it... '_Utsukushii Funsen_'?"

_Oops_... I hadn't meant to bring _that_ one. In an instant my whole face caught fire. She balked.

"Is it..." Then she flushed pink. "Was it... for an old girlfriend?"

I squirmed a little. "Sort of. Not really. A girl I used to have a crush on." I swallowed nervously. "We never dated. We're just friends, now."

"I see," she murmured, though her brow furrowed. She moved it to the back of the stack.

"Do you still want to hear it?" I immediately wished I hadn't said that. Envy flashed across her eyes. "Never mind. It's not that good, anyway." There really wasn't much fullness to the song; the melody was flimsy, and the chords rudimentary. Yukumi's hard gaze at the sheets of music in still in her hands deterred me from saying any of it. Very aware of the hot seat, I cleared my throat and waited for her to pick something else. Silence stretched a little too long and I plucked a random chord. Eventually she just dropped the music back on the bench between us, looking pensive. "Well, then," I said to myself, spreading the papers out to glance over the titles. Noiseless next to me, Yukumi ate the last few bites of her crêpe. I picked a sheet of tabs at random and strummed through it.

Yukumi hummed. "That one was kinda nice. Which one was it?" Her eyes roved over the sheets before me. I pointed at the untitled piece. "Nice," she intoned again, eyes drifting shut. "It makes me think of the ocean, somehow... I want to go to the beach sometime, while the weather's still good." A lukewarm breeze kicked her hair across her face and she suddenly looked so serene. I swallowed reflexively and pointed myself back to the music. Somehow I knew things were okay again. Suppressing a sigh of relief, I took the break in tension to check the time on my cell phone. Still a couple of hours before it became imperative that we leave. I relayed the information to Yukumi, and asked if she wanted to hear more.

She shrugged, but it was a decidedly content shrug. "I would like to hear more, but it's your choice."

I looked at the yen piled in my guitar case. Enough for the trip home, anyway. A quick survey of my surroundings revealed that much of my so-called audience had dissipated.

With little other information on what to do, I cycled again through songs that I had already played. "Wanna head out?" I asked after watching Yukumi flip her phone open a fourth time in less than two minutes. Without hesitation she nodded. I gathered yen out of the floor of the case and pushed it all into my jacket pocket. Once the case was securely closed, I slung my backpack onto my shoulders and stood with the case in hand. She wrapped her arm around mine, and we walked to the nearby bus stop. In the interlude of bus rides and waiting at stations, she got a phone call from her parents. I tried to ignore how brightly she told them about my guitar performance. I hoped her family wouldn't ask me to play for them, too...

Yukumi lived in a traditional-style home. A brown shiba inu chained out front barked raucously at my arrival. "Hush, Carmel," Yukumi cooed, scratching his ears until he settled. Once we were inside the house, Yukumi dashed out of her shoes to grab a pair of guest slippers for me. The smell of dinner cooking already permeated the house.

"I'm home!" she called.

"Welcome back!" a woman's voice called from the other side of the house.

Yukumi turned back to me, grinning. "Come on, I'll introduce you." And she led me around the house, to her mother, her grandmother, and her older brother. "My older sister works at a takoyaki shop," she said as an aside, "She probably won't be back until after we start dinner." I nodded, still trying to remember everyone's name. "We grow our own rice! Wanna see?" Thrown by the abrupt change in topic, I let her lead me by the hand back outside. A few chickens gossiped in a fenced-off section of the yard. "We have our own eggs, too, obviously. And there's our vegetable garden..." We took a few steps up an incline that leveled off again onto to dip into a large, low-lying field.

"Nice," I said. I had seen plenty of rice paddies before, of course.

"I don't remember; do you like steamed edamame?" I nodded; she nodded briskly in response. "Sorry, I should've known that."

"It's okay." Though usually she seemed to memorize everything I told her as though it could save her life. I decided not to think too much about it.

"Do you want to wait upstairs in my room until dinner? It shouldn't be too long." And we walked back into the house. I picked up my guitar from where I'd set it down near the door. "You can take that up, too."

"Thanks," I uttered, shuffling into the guest slippers again. They were a little bit too big, but if I curled my toes I could manage not to throw them off my feet. After maneuvering the bulky guitar case up the narrow, spiraling stairs, we landed right at the door to Yukumi's room. She pushed the shouji aside and the light came on at her entrance. At my inquiring gaze she pointed to a remote mounted by the door jamb. A low table sat at our feet, in close proximity to her bed and desk. A bookshelf – stacked with many photo albums as well – took up the corner nearest the door. I looked all around in unveiled perplexity; this was less than half the size of my room at home. And yet it did not feel small at all... Evidently Yukumi _knew_ how to organize. She dropped her bag on the table and sat on her bed. At her gesture I dithered over the choices, before heading for the desk chair. At her shift in posture and a flicker of disappointment across her eyes, I... _Oh. _Meaningfully, she made more room for another person to sit next to her at the foot of the bed. Feeling wrong-footed to do so, I nevertheless took the invitation. To my surprise, her bed was essentially an inch of padding over a _board_. I wondered how she could sleep on it, regardless of whether she had A/C.

After a moment of quiet between us, she said, "Thank you, for playing guitar for me." Simultaneously we looked at it, leaning against her bookshelf.

"You're welcome," I said quietly. A further silence, which she finally broke with a sigh. Her head tilted onto my shoulder; I felt her soft brown hair against my neck. "Yukumi?" She didn't explain her behavior. Didn't even jump up in embarrassment like I expected her to. I wanted to question her actions. But, I also didn't want to. Yuhei's words drifted to the front of my mind and I tried to squash them all back down. This was weird. But... it felt... nice. Felt very nice. Kind of good, actually. I offered my hand, palm up. Yukumi laced her fingers in with mine. It felt very good. Cautious now, I looked to the door, which neither of us had closed. I wondered what would happen if someone came and caught us.

"Is this okay?" she asked after a moment. I looked down at her; she must have felt it, for she immediately explained, "I've wanted to do this for a long time, but I should have asked you if I could..."

"It's okay."

She lifted her head off my shoulder to scrutinize me.

"Really." When she didn't relent I let out a breath. "Okay, I admit that it's not something I've ever done before. It's not something I don't like to let people do. But... I don't mind, with you." I offered a tiny smile. She seemed to melt a little at that, and her head dropped back against my neck.

"Could... Is it- never mind."

She refused to tell me what she had wanted to ask.

–

The Nishikawa family made for amicable dinner companions. I kept pulling my sleeves down, but I was able to pass it off as a nervous habit. The family seemed to approve of me, Yukumi confided after dinner. It was her night to clean the dishes, and I insisted on helping. Sleeves rolled up and arms nearly elbow-deep in sudsy water, I scrubbed and she rinsed.

"My dad called your dad," she said tentatively, "And you can stay the night, if you want to. The couch is comfortable." Indeed, I'd not wanted to get out of it to eat dinner after sprawling in it. "Cos it is a long trip to get home, and it's getting late."

I wondered why Dad broke the curfew. Satomi couldn't have _that_ much influence over him, could she?

I dithered again. Now that there was the choice to crash here for the night, I _really_ didn't want to make the commute back home. "Sounds good," I intoned, returning to the particularly stuck remnants of tempura batter in a large glass bowl. Yukumi all but squealed with glee.

Later, we sat together on the porch, Carmel dozing underneath our feet, watching the sky change colors as the sun drifted down. She sipped at a bottle of mineral water, and I picked at a large bowl of steamed edamame that sat between us. Our eyes kept meeting over it, our hands touching when we reached for more of the bean pods, and every time she blushed a little more and looked away again, eyes overbright. I tried not to let any of it affect me, but it still did.

What _had _I gotten myself into?

–

I woke up first to a text from Izumi asking if I wanted to meet up again today, the usual place, smiley-face? At noises of clattering utensils I craned my neck up to see Mrs. Nishikawa fixing breakfast. I turned back to the text and asked about the time. Afternoon. I could do that.

Yukumi strode in minutes later, and I sat up, rubbing my hair flat. "Sleep okay?" she asked, looking worried when I yawned. I nodded, unable to speak coherently just yet. Her mother set a bowl of cut pineapple and oranges on the table. I dropped to my knees beside it and picked up an orange slice.

"Thank you," I called to Mrs. Nishikawa before taking a bite. My mouth felt fuzzy; if I had known there was a possibility of staying the night, I would have packed a toothbrush... The TV clicked on, and Yukumi selected a news channel. I didn't pay much attention to it, but she watched intently, asking her mother about different blurbs as they came up. Eventually Mr. Nishikawa came in, seating himself next to his daughter and joining in the discussion. Now and then a question would be asked of me, and I answered more or less on auto-pilot. I was busy running through bus schedules in my head, figuring out how long I could stay before I _needed_ to leave.

"When do you think you'll go back home?" Yukumi asked.

"Maybe after lunch," I finally answered. Provided they had lunch early enough.

"Anything you want to do in the meantime?"

I thought back over yesterday. "Well, I noticed you have a lot of photo albums; are they all full?"

She beamed. "Mostly. They're all from countries I've visited." And then I remembered the souvenirs all over her room and on her window sill. Australia, America, Korea, Italy... "We can go through them together."

I nodded. "I'd like that," I said. She wiggled in a self-satisfied sort of way that was just about adorable.

After we finished breakfast, Yukumi all but dragged me right up to her room. Once there, she selected a pink-bound photo album and sat cross-legged on the bed, patting the space directly next to her. She led me through the story of the pictures, explained the names and mannerisms of every person in the pictures. "They were all very kind," Yukumi kept saying.

The first album had been her "America" album. Then she showed me "Australia," Korea," and all the rest. I watched her grow older through the pictures. The last albums covered more countries in Europe. "I want to go back," she said at the end.

"Which one?"

She smiled, looking a little sad. "Any of them. All of them. I'd like to go to America again, because I was so young the first time." She sighed. "Maybe when I'm in college, I can go with an exchange program?"

I shrugged. "Study abroad, you mean?"

"That's expensive..."

"Traveling at all is expensive."

She blushed. "I'll have to see what my parents think of it... There's no rush, though." I shook my head in agreement. Yukumi glanced at the clock on her windowsill. "Is it time for you to go, yet?"

"Just about." I slid off the bed and straightened my clothes. Once I hit the bottom of the stairs I went into the living area, where Mr. Nishikawa and his wife sat still watching the news, now joined by Yukumi's grandmother. They looked up at me. I bowed. "Thank you for letting me stay the night. It was very kind of you."

They nodded. I turned to see Yukumi waiting at the door, with my guitar in hand – I'd almost left without it! "I'll walk with you to the station," she said. I nodded in thanks as I took the guitar from her and slipped out of the guest slippers into my shoes. We arrived at the bus station hand in hand. Yukumi looked thoughtful again.

"Everything all right?"

She shrugged. "Too short." At my inquiring gaze she continued, "I wish you could have stayed over longer."

I wanted to laugh. "School tomorrow," I reminded her, and she nodded. There was no one else around at the stop, though I could see a businessman approaching from a distance.

"I..." she trailed off. I looked at her, but she didn't continue right away. So I looked back out to the street, the bus schedule, whatever worked. "I..." she tried again, "I really like you, Kouji." And she blushed fiercely even before I threw a bemused look at her. Really, it had been kind of obvious... Self-consciously she swung our arms between us, as if she could dissipate the awkwardness away in the manner of a puff of smoke. "I'd like to... um..." The roar of the approaching bus tumbled down the street. Squeaking, face hot enough to fry an egg, she stammered, "L-look at me, please." Unsuspecting, I did as she said. Quicker than I could stop her, she fisted my jacket collar and pulled.

It took her scampering away in thorough embarrassment for me to register the swift, feather-light brush of her lips against mine. And when it hit me, I wanted to fall right through the ground to the other side of the planet.

* * *

**When I was in Japan, I got a matcha-anko (green tea powder and red bean paste) crepe. It was freaking delicious. So's tempurah. And takoyaki. And steamed edamame. I miss Japanese food a lot. ;_; (Tofu dengaku. I could eat it _forever_.)  
**

**I'm not terrifically fond of this chapter, either; I'm gonna just push on through, eh? Keep calm and carry on and all that.  
**

**Who spotted the Bilingual Bonus in this chapter? I mean, it's obvious what's going on even if you only know English, but I still had fun attempting to crowbar some Gratuitous Japanese into the story that wasn't words everyone else already knows by osmosis. :B (For the record, "Utsukushii Funsen" is supposed to translate to "beautiful fountain." Yeah; add love-struck adolescents to the list of things I have trouble taking seriously. If I got the grammar wrong, well...) I don't know; having the title be in English just didn't feel right. Working out the logistics of the-story's-in-English-but-they're-really-speaking-another-language never reaches the same conclusion twice for me, so I've stopped trying to set rules and I just sort of go with instinct...  
**

**Might as well say; the Nishikawa home is largely based upon my Osaka host family. It's even the same family name...  
**

**Things pick up a little more, next chapter. Promise.**


End file.
